SULTAN YACOUB, Lebanon (Reuters) – Three gunmen pop up behind some rocks near Lebanon’s rugged border with Syria. "Go back. This area is off limits," one bellows down the hillside, which conceals a network of tunnels used by a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction to shelter weapons and fighters.A roadside bomb made from an artillery shell and connected to a wire peeks out of a small ditch near the entrance to the base controlled by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), ready to repel any attack.
Hidden in remote valleys or perched on strategic hills, guerrilla positions run by Damascus-based Palestinian groups dot Lebanon’s frontier with Syria, among the last remnants of its military and political domination of its smaller neighbor. Lebanese have long turned a blind eye to these posts, but they have been in the spotlight since a U.N. resolution last year demanded foreign troops withdraw from Lebanon and militias — a reference to Palestinian factions and Hizbollah — disarm.
Syria pulled its troops out after 29 years in April after intense global pressure and local street protests after the killing in February of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
The Palestinian outposts remain, arousing fears among many Lebanese that Damascus could use Palestinian guerrillas, who played a key role in the 1975-1990 civil war, to destabilize a country already shaken by a series of bombings this year.
U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said in a report last month that arms were being taken across the border to Palestinians in Lebanon.
This has added to the stand-off between the government, which demands they give up arms outside Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps, and the Syrian-backed guerrillas who arrived over 35 years ago.
Bracing against the breeze outside a concrete shack that passes for a hilltop base, a guerrilla from the pro-Syrian Fatah Uprising digs his hands into the pockets of an ill-fitting green uniform and explains why the group wants to keep its guns.
"We maintain these military positions to defend against Israel and we will stay here until we are allowed to return to our homes in Palestine," he said. "But our guns will never point at the Lebanese Army. We point them only at Israel."
TENSIONS RUN HIGH
While both sides have played down the likelihood of a showdown, saying they are seeking talks, not conflict, over Palestinian arms, nerves are strained and tensions running high.
Elite Lebanese Army units in armored vehicles have encircled the PFLP-GC bunker at Sultan Yacoub and deployed in force along other parts of the eastern frontier where a civilian army surveyor was shot dead by suspected Palestinian guerrillas last month.
Fatah Uprising, which runs some small outposts nearby, denies killing the man, as do the grizzled fighters themselves.
The army has sealed several eastern valleys that lead to Syria after increasing reports that Palestinian militants were acting as a conduit for arms smuggled across dirt tracks that criss-cross the area. The troops are on alert.
"This fuss is part of U.S. and Israeli pressure against us. Let us return to Palestine and we will leave these posts," one PFLP-GC official said.
Fatah Uprising has already vacated a few tiny posts that are difficult to defend, according to one of the fighters who left.
Closing the larger bases held by the PFLP-GC could be more of a challenge, especially as Palestinian factions are themselves split over what to do about weapons outside the refugee camps.
Those closer to the Palestinian Authority and in control of most of the camps have been flexible. Syrian-backed militants who wield most muscle outside the camps see things differently.
Led by Ahmad Jibril, the PFLP-GC won notoriety with an attack in 1987 in which fighters hang-glided into Israel, killing six soldiers and helping spark the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
It also runs the large Naameh bunker south of Beirut, which has been the target of several Israeli air raids, including one since Israel ended a 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
With pressure mounting on Syria, the stand-off over Palestinian arms is sure to stay on the international agenda.
The United States is seeking a new U.N. resolution against Syria, based on Roed-Larsen’s accusations.
About 390,000 Palestinian refugees are registered in Lebanon’s 12 camps, set up when Israel was created in 1948 and run by Palestinian fighters armed mainly with assault rifles, grenade launchers and rockets. Lebanese authorities have no presence or say inside the camps.
Residents of the Lebanese border village of Qusaya say the PFLP-GC is expanding its bunker in the hills above their village, but there was no way to check as the guerrillas who run will not let visitors in.
"There were about 10 of them before but they must be 100 now. They have been bolstering the post since the Syrians left," said one resident, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"They have everything up there; rockets, anti-aircraft guns, artillery, but they don’t come to the village or bother anyone."
The Palestinians say that if anyone is nervous, it is they.
Clutching his AK-47 rifle, a fighter in trademark PFLP-GC maroon fatigues, said he did not want history to repeat itself.
"We carry arms to protect our people in the camps. The Sabra and Shatila massacres are still fresh in our minds," he said, referring to the 1982 slaughter by pro-Israeli Lebanese militia of hundreds of Palestinians in the Beirut camps.
"Who will guarantee us the massacres won’t happen again?"
