By Leila Hatoum

BEIRUT: The speaker of Lebanon’s Parliament insisted Thursday that Damascus "welcomes and encourages" the Lebanese national dialogue and "has no problems with it." Nabih Berri, who made the comments during a celebration of Liberation Day six years after the Israeli withdrawal from most of the country’s Southern territories, said: "Lebanon is being used to besiege Syria and Syria is being used to hit the last vestiges of resistance and defense line against Israel in Lebanon.

"This way we will all be losers," he warned. "I call for the establishment of a true Lebanese-Syrian dialogue.

"I wonder why things are always portrayed in such a way that Syria is the one that stands as a barrier in the face of demands imposed on it," he added. "Lebanon, on many occasions has refused proposals as well."

Lebanese participants at the national dialogue table – as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1680 – have requested that Syria establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon and demarcate the countries’ border.

Syria has not yet given Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora the green light to visit Damascus to discuss these matters, despite the fact that Resolution 1680, issued last week, "strongly encourages the Syrian government" to do so.

Berri had stormed out of a Parliament session Tuesday after a heated debate with MP and former Minister Bahij Tabbara, suspending it less than an hour after its start. The conflict with Tabbara was over Syrian-Lebanese relations, when Tabbara asked: "We want to know if the open doors to our officials in Syria were those of Syria’s prison doors, or what?"

Berri had made a statement on Monday that "Damascus’ doors are open for any Lebanese official," referring to a possible open road for Siniora to visit Damascus.

by Muntasser Abdallah

SIDON, Lebanon (AFP) – A leader of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, Mahmoud al-Majzub, has been killed in a car bomb attack in Lebanon’s main southern city of Sidon. Majzub’s brother Nidal, who had been beside him at the time of the blast, was killed instantly, while the Jihad militant was taken to hospital gravely wounded.

"Mahmoud al-Majzub succumbed to his wounds despite all the efforts to save his life," said a source from Sidon hospital where he was being treated hours after the blast.

Islamic Jihad, one of the most extreme Palestinian movements and responsible for all the most recent suicide attacks inside Israel, vowed to take revenge. But the Israeli army insisted it was not responsible.

By Rym Ghazal

BEIRUT: A Lebanese soldier died in hospital on Friday, two days after being wounded in clashes between the army and pro-Syrian Palestinian gunmen near the Syrian border.

In the latest development since the violence, officials confirmed that trucks carrying arms and members of the Fatah al-Intifada had in fact entered Lebanon from Syria, after initially denying such reports.

Corporal Mustafa Medlej, 21, died in hospital in the southeastern village of Jeb Janine after sustaining two head wounds during clashes on Wednesday between Lebanese troops and Fatah al-Intifada militants in the mountainous area of Halwa-Yanta, located about three kilometers from the Syrian border, according to an army statement.

"There was a redeployment of men and arms in the posts held by Fatah al-Intifada on Wednesday and Thursday night," the statement said.

"Several of the Palestinian fighters involved in the shooting of Lebanese soldiers have been identified and they will be arrested immediately and prosecuted by the Lebanese judiciary," he added.

Security sources told The Daily Star that the army had asked that three members of Fatah al-Intifada be handed over, not two as had been previously reported. The three are said to be responsible for starting the incident Wednesday.

Initial reports said Fatah al-Intifada had received late Wednesday from Syria some 50 new members and five trucks laden with arms and ammunition to reinforce their positions.

By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer

BEIRUT, Lebanon – The U.N. Security Council’s call for Syria to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon will likely only stiffen Damascus’ resolve against a move it has steadfastly rejected for six decades. At least three factors are at work to discourage Syria from heeding the U.N. resolution, aimed at restoring Lebanon’s sovereignty following Syria’s 29-year occupation of its smaller neighbor.

Uppermost among them, the resolution cannot be enforced. That makes it a piece of "propaganda with no political value that could provoke the Syrians and undermine resumption of relations," said Sateh Noureddine, managing editor of a pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper, As-Safir.

by Nayla Razzouk
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon has welcomed a UN Security Council resolution calling on former powerbroker Syria to establish formal diplomatic relations with Beirut and demarcate their border, which prompted Damascus to claim interference it its affairs. Meanwhile, in a sign of ongoing strife between the two neighbors, pro-Syrian Palestinian militants and Lebanese army troops each beefed up their presence near the border following clashes that wounded two people a day earlier.

"The resolution is good because it encourages both brotherly countries to cooperate in order to implement two issues that were adopted by the national dialogue," or ongoing reconciliation talks among Lebanese leaders, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said Thursday.

Those issues are the establishment of formal diplomatic relations and the demarcation of the border, Siniora told An-Nahar newspaper. "Lebanon, as a state, did not have a say in it (the resolution), and we tried to soften the terms that were used and we succeeded in softening the terms," Siniora added.

BEIRUT (AFP) – Former Christian warlord Samir Geagea has said that the four Iranian diplomats kidnapped in 1982 in Lebanon by members of his now defunct Lebanese Forces militia died at least 20 years ago.

Geagea told AFP that when he became leader of the Lebanese Forces militia in 1986, he learned that the four missing Iranians "for sure died" in captivity.

Tehran and the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah have repeatedly claimed that the four missing Iranians are still alive and in Israel custody, after being handed over by the Lebanese Forces militia to then ally Israel.

The fate of the four has been one of the major points of indirect negotiations for a swap of prisoners and missing persons with Israel.

Taher Abu Hamdan
AFP

HALWA, Lebanon —  Clashes broke out on Wednesday between the Lebanese army and pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrillas near the Syrian border, wounding two people, and a soldier was detained for several hours, police said.

The soldier, Khaled Ibrahim, was snatched and then freed by guerrillas of the Damascus-based group Fatah-Intifada, which is founded by a Palestinian militant known as Abu Mussa, they said.

Abu Fadi Hammad, the Lebanon representative of Abu Mussa’s group, said that one guerrilla was wounded in the clashes and that the detained soldier had been handed back to the army.

A senior army official said that a soldier was also wounded in the fighting in Wadi Al Asswad village of eastern Lebanon as troops and militants traded fire with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

The army, in a statement, said that troops retaliated after coming under fire from "Palestinian elements" during a patrol near "a newly set up position". Soldiers later dismantled the post and confiscated equipment, it said.

The statement did not mention the kidnapping but said that one soldier was "gravely wounded" in the clashes.

By Tali Caspi

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights (Reuters) – Just as the sun sets, an explosion rocks a mountain fort close to Israel’s heavily guarded border with Lebanon.

In years past, such a blast might have sent Israeli soldiers scrambling to fend off attack by Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.

But this time the commotion is staged, and the only shooting is by film cameras for the last scene of "Beaufort," a drama about Israel’s whirlwind 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.

For director Joseph Cedar, who spent much of his mandatory Israeli army service dodging Hizbollah ambushes in the so-called "security zone," making the movie was a catharsis of sorts.

"So many scenes are taken from my own experiences … Just putting it on the screen is therapeutic," he told Reuters on the set, a Crusader-era castle chosen for its resemblance to the Beaufort Fort visible just across the Lebanese border.

"It’s a story of any mountain in any battle. Soldiers died to capture it, died to protect it, and then found out its insignificance," Cedar said after re-enacting the demolition of the Israeli garrison at the fort by withdrawing troops.

by Salim Yassine
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanese leaders have adjourned the latest round of reconciliation talks, still unable to find a consensus on the future of embattled pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud.

The leaders, following nearly four hours of roundtable talks at parliament house amid tight security measures, set the next round of negotiations for June 8 to continue discussions on the arms of the anti-Israeli Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah.

"Participants did not reach an agreement on the presidency, so they moved on to the remaining item on the table: the strategic defense policy" against potential Israeli dangers on Lebanon, parliament speaker Nabih Berri said Tuesday.

Berri told reporters that the next round of talks will take place on June 8 "because some colleagues have trips abroad and there are some holidays."