BEIRUT, Lebanon – Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Friday he will abide by any decision that Lebanon takes on disarming Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon. Lebanon hosts more than 350,000 Palestinian refugees, including thousands of armed guerrillas from the mainstream Palestinian Fatah faction, in densely populated camps around the country that are off limits to the Lebanese government.Authorities fear there would be bloodshed if they go into the camps, where many Islamic militant fugitives are known to be hiding. The first refugees came to Lebanon after the 1948 war that saw the creation of Israel.”We are guests in Lebanon, temporary guests, and we are subject to Lebanese laws just like everybody else in Lebanon,” Abbas said after talks with President Emile Lahoud. Abbas arrived in Beirut Friday from neighboring Damascus where he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Besides meeting with Lahoud, Abbas will see Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati. He is also scheduled to meet with a Palestinian delegation from refugee camps in Lebanon.Abbas is widely expected to discuss the issue of disarming Palestinians living in the country as demanded by U.N. Security Council resolution 1559, which calls on Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias to give up their weapons.The resolution of last September refers to the Lebanese Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrilla group

By Lin Noueihed, BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon may be racked by bombings and fresh out of its first elections since Syrian troops pulled out, but for its summer music festivals the show must go on.  Held among the ruins of a Roman city and in a 19th century mountain palace, the Baalbek and Beiteddine festivals begin on Thursday, hoping to turn the gaze from the country’s political turmoil to its classical, pop, world and Arabic concerts. Organizers feared they would have to cancel the al fresco performances when former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated in February, touching off large street protests. A series of ensuing explosions and killings fueled those fears. Anti-Syrian Lebanese columnist Samir Kassir was killed on June 2, the day Beiteddine Festival was due to announce its 2005 lineup. Its organizer Nora Jumblatt was in a hotel preparing for the press conference when she heard the news and called it off. “We passed through a period when we were worried we would not be able to do it, but we didn’t cancel, we waited. We changed the dates, we cut the number of shows to fit the situation and we waited,” Jumblatt, wife of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, told Reuters. “Don’t forget, Beiteddine Festival began during the war. In 1985 things were very difficult and we did it then.”The Beiteddine Festival was launched in the midst of the 1975-1990 civil war, which divided Lebanon into Christian and Muslim enclaves and pitted neighbor against neighbor, nowhere more so than in the mountains where it is held.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Prime Minister-designate Fouad Siniora said on Wednesday he was making progress in efforts to form Lebanon’s first government since Syrian troops withdrew from the country. The announcement of the new government has been delayed by demands and counter-demands over cabinet portfolios from Siniora’s anti-Syrian friends and powerful allies of Damascus.”I believe we are making progress toward forming this government,” Siniora said after a meeting with President Emile Lahoud, a close Syria ally. Political sources familiar with the talks said reaching an agreement between various political factions still required more time, ruling out an imminent breakthrough.”Progress is slow. We are getting there but more time is needed to dismantle all hurdles,” one source said.One stumbling block is a demand by a Shi’ite Muslim alliance loyal to Syria to appoint a Shi’ite foreign minister. Hizbollah group, which swept the Shi’ite Muslim vote in last month’s elections to win 14 parliament seats, will join the cabinet for the first time and asked Siniora for two ministerial posts.While Siniora, a Sunni, had agreed to this but has rejected demands by Hizbollah and allied Amal group over the Foreign Ministry. He held talks with Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday. CHRISTIAN REPRESENTATION Political sources say Siniora wants to give the portfolio to former Foreign Minister Fouad Boutrous, a Christian.

BEIRUT (AFP) – A Lebanese criminal court threw out a case against firebrand Christian deputy Michel Aoun, who had been accused of making statements in 2003 deemed damaging to Lebanon’s former masters in Syria. “The criminal court, presided by Judge Michel Abu Arrage, announced its decision to drop charges against general Michel Aoun due to a lack of criminal evidence,” following two hours of deliberation, an announcement said.The court also decided to revoke two arrest warrants against Aoun, issued in October and November 2003 as part of the same case. Aoun, a former army general who returned home in May after 15 years of exile in France following the withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country, was elected deputy in Lebanon’s recent legislative polls and now enjoys parliamentary immunity.He testified before a US congressional committee in September 2003 which helped pave the way for Washington’s adoption of sanctions against Syria for its “support of terrorism” and its “occupation of Lebanon”. In his testimony, Aoun accused Syria of masterminding the assassinations of two Lebanese presidents during the 1975-1990 civil war. Syria ended its political and military domination over Lebanon in April. Aoun and his lawyers were not present in court for the verdict, the last in a series of trials he was facing in Lebanon before his return from exile.

BEIRUT (AFP) – Shiite militant group Hezbollah said it was seeking cabinet posts for the first time in the new Lebanese government, in a move likely to complicate UN demands for its disarmament. The announcement followed the collapse of prime minister designate Fuad Siniora’s efforts to bring in the party of firebrand Christian former general Michel Aoun to a new coalition.”It has become our right to participate directly and not just through our allies, in the decision-making process,” said Mohammed Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, which holds 14 of the legislature’s 128 seats.Fellow Hezbollah MP Mohammed Fneish said the movement, which was involved in deadly clashes with Israeli troops in a disputed border zone just last week, was seeking “two cabinet posts”.Hezbollah competed for last month’s elections in alliance with rival Shiite faction Amal on a single-issue ticket opposing disarmament of its military wing in compliance with Resolution 1559 passed by the UN Security Council last September.The Future Movement of the prime minister designate — led by Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim — formed some electoral deals with Hezbollah and spoke out during the campaign against disarming the “resistance”.Hezbollah’s push to join the government came after Siniora abandoned efforts to woo Aoun, whose Free Patriotic Movement was the only major faction to advocate compliance with Resolution 1559, albeit through negotiations with the militant group.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Syrian forces killed an Arab Muslim militant among a group trying to cross the border into Lebanon and arrested at least 34 others, the official Syrian news agency SANA said on Sunday.It said two soldiers were also killed in the clash. It did not say when the incident happened.SANA said members of the group trying to infiltrate were arrested, but it did not say how many. It also said that further investigations led to the arrest of 34 non-Syrian militants and finding passports and other documents in a house.A Lebanese security source said the slain militant was an Algerian and those arrested were from Lebanon and Algeria.Al Jazeera television quoted security sources in Damascus as saying that the militant was a Tunisian named Majdi bin Mohammed bin Said al-Zreibi.Lebanon’s al-Manar television station, mouthpiece of the Hizbollah guerrilla group, said the militants were on their way from Iraq to Lebanon.It said the clash happened overnight on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Homs near Lebanon’s northeastern borders.”Syrian security forces killed the militant … who holds an Arab nationality in an armed clash as he tried to leave the border to Lebanon illegally along with members of a radical group that he leads,” SANA said.

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Prime Minister-designate Fuad Saniora on Friday got down to trying to form Lebanon’s first government without Syrian influence in three decades. Saniora consulted former prime ministers and legislators a day after President Emile Lahoud asked him to form a Cabinet. He was given the position after a record number of lawmakers

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer, BEIRUT, Lebanon – A booby-trapped car exploded near a hotel south of the capital, seriously injuring one woman, security officials said Friday. A hand grenade placed between the door and the driver’s seat detonated when the woman opened the door of the car, which was parked near the Lebanon […]

WASHINGTON — The United States froze yesterday the US assets of Syria’s interior minister and a second official, accusing them of leading military and security operations in Lebanon, as the Bush administration increased its pressure on Syria. The Treasury Department said Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan and Rustum Ghazali, identified as the chief of Syrian […]

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon‘s pro-Syrian president bowed to the will of the majority on Thursday and appointed an anti- Syria former minister to head the first government to take office without Syrian troops in the country for 30 years. Highlighting the challenges facing the next government, Israeli troops shot at Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas in an Israeli-occupied border area in the second day of the worst violence seen there in six months.A Hizbollah spokesman said the guerrillas did not respond. Fouad Siniora, a former finance minister and aide to assassinated former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, was proposed by the Future Bloc led by Hariri’s son, Saad. All but two lawmakers nominated Siniora, a choice President Emile Lahoud was obliged to respect though relations between the two are said to be frosty, as they were with the late Hariri.”I would like to note the positive atmosphere of my meeting with His Excellency the President, which I hope would pave the way for cooperation between us to the serve the public interest,” Siniora told reporters. “This moment is not a moment for political debate or renewing disputes and differences,” he said. “Therefore we join Mr. Saad al-Hariri in extending hands to all Lebanese people and political forces to move forward with a comprehensive reform program.” Elections that ended on June 19 returned an anti-Syrian majority to parliament for the first time since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.