BEIRUT, 2 January (IRIN) – After a steady decrease in the number of landmine victims since the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, last year witnessed a sudden resurgence of cases. In December alone, three girls were injured by an unexploded cluster bomb in the south of the country, leading one to have her leg amputated. A foreign worker also had to have a leg amputated after stepping on a landmine at a construction site in Beirut. "We have 21 survivors and five killed this year," Brigadier General Salim Raad, director of the National De-mining Office, established in 1998, said. "The numbers have almost doubled in comparison to 2004." According to Raad, poverty is the main reason behind the increase in cases.

"Farmers often use their land right up to the minefield fence," he explained. "A cow was once trapped in a neighbouring minefield and, being the farmer’s main source of income, he went to save her. They both died." Raad said that the economic situation was worsening in the country. Some reports suggest that some 28 percent of the country’s population live in poverty. In another incident a year ago, Ahmad al-Sahili stepped on a mine as he was helping a friend collect iron to sell in the Nabatieh area of South Lebanon, which has yet to be de-mined. The young mechanic, who had been set to travel to Gabon for better job prospects, was injured in his arms and left leg, and required the amputation of his right leg.

Abdel Wahab Badrakhan, Dar al Hayat, Is al-Zirqawi in Lebanon now? Statements on the Internet websites can take him anywhere. Yet, announcing that his organization is responsible for launching missiles from South Lebanon toward Israeli settlements is a clear message to the Americans rather than the Israelis.Guess who benefits from instigating such a message?Could it be Saddam Hussein, for instance, or the Iraqi resistance, which is striving to extend its struggle to Palestine through Lebanon? Of course not. Could it be "Hezbollah" or some Palestinian groups present in Lebanon, especially "the People’s Front – General Command"? The answer is also no, because these organizations cannot solely call in "Al Qaeda", welcome it, and bear its burdens. As such, if al-Zirqawi really arrived to Lebanon, the party that led him to Iraq led him to Lebanon, i.e. Syria and Iran.

It is most likely that the terrorist organization is not yet present in Lebanon; however, it is not unlikely that it has advocates therein. Did these advocates grow to have the potential to hold missiles and transpierce South Lebanon to launch them on Israel? If this is the case, the situation should alarm the Lebanese army first, and then Hezbollah. In other words, it should alarm the Lebanese government with its rift between Syrian proponents and opposers. Such transpiercing is unjustified except for mere destructive motives and has nothing to do with smart "resistance" that the Lebanese supported -despite the divergence in points of views – and still refuse to undermine its importance. As long as these suspicions swirled around the "General Command" with respect to launching the missiles, this organization has become, following the report of "al-Qaeda", either "innocent" or on the contrary linked to "al-Qaeda". In both cases, its status must be clarified, since this is not the first suspicion that it has been subjected to.

by James Zogby, (Tuesday January 03 2006)

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Significant changes are taking place in public opinion in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Despite regional and domestic concerns specific to their countries, Saudis and Lebanese are more optimistic about their futures, more satisfied with their present circumstances, more focused on specific problems that must be solved, and more strongly identified with their countries than when we last polled in 2002. These are some of the findings of a Zogby International poll, conducted during the last half of October 2005. It was sponsored, in part, by the Young Arab Leaders organization, and the Arab American Institute. In an earlier column, I reported the poll