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Anti-Syrian factions square off in Lebanon polls

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Voters head to the polls in central and eastern Lebanon today (Sunday) , where anti-Syrian factions are squaring off against each other in the most crucial round of Lebanon’s parliamentary election.


With 58 seats up for grabs in the Mount Lebanon and eastern Bekaa Valley districts, the shape of the next 128-seat assembly should become clear in the penultimate stage of Lebanon’s first general election since Syria pulled its troops out.


Forty-two legislators have already been elected in the first two rounds of voting in Beirut and south.


Those rounds brought no surprises, with the son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri winning a landslide in the mainly Sunni capital and a joint Hizbollah and Amal slate sweeping polls in the southern Shi’ite heartland.

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Bush gives Syria fresh warning over Lebanon

President George W. Bush issued a new warning to Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, with the White House saying the Damascus government was having an intimidatory impact as Lebanon stages elections.


Bush said he was “disturbed” by reports that Syrian intelligence remain in Lebanon, in breach of a UN resolution ordering all Syrian forces out of the country.


“Our message to Syria — and it’s not just the message of the United States; the United Nations has said the same thing — is that in order for Lebanon to be free,” Syria needs to “not only remove their military, but to remove intelligence officers as well,” Bush said at the White House.

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Syrian agents still in Lebanon, opposition and US warn

BEIRUT (AFP) – Syrian intelligence agents remain in Lebanon despite assurances they have left, and more political murders can be expected, a key opposition figure said in a claim echoed by Washington.


“I believe the entire opposition is being targeted,” said Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in a television interview late Thursday night, repeating an accusation he has often made since the murder in February of former premier Rafiq Hariri.


“The assassinations will continue with or without the knowledge of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,” he charged.


Jumblatt was speaking only a week after the latest political killing — the death of prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir.


Lebanon’s pro-Syrian regime and its political masters in Damascus have denied widespread allegations that they were behind the two killings, as well as a series of bombings since Hariri’s death that have killed three others.


But Washington voiced concern over what it said was a continued Syrian intelligence presence in Lebanon, charging that it was creating a climate of fear in the midst of parliamentary elections.


“We are deeply concerned about Syria’s interference and intimidation inside Lebanon,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.


“Syria needs to comply fully with United Nations (Security) Council Resolution 1559 — that means getting all their intelligence operatives out of Lebanon,” McClellan said, referring to a US- and French-sponored text adopted last September.

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Wartime foes join forces in Lebanon massacre village

KFAR MATTA, Lebanon (AFP) – Fifteen years after the end of Lebanon’s civil war, residents of Kfar Matta — the scene of bloody sectarian massacres — are to vote on Sunday for tickets grouping long-time Druze and Christian foes.


“The alliance between Christian and Druze candidates is a good thing and a first step towards reconciliation,” said Shaheen Ghareeb, a Druze resident of this mountain village outside Beirut.


Ghareeb said he would cast his ballot in the third round of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections Sunday for a list headed by Druze chief Walid Jumblatt, who has forged an unlikely alliance with jailed Christian warlord Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces despite their bloody history.


Geagea’s militia slaughtered between 100 and 270 Druze civilians in Kfar Matta as clashes between the rival forces swept the region in 1983.


A year later, when Jumblatt and his Shiite allies moved in, Christians fled and their homes were taken over by Druze, who are members of a breakaway sect of Islam.

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Annan says some Syrian forces may still be in Lebanon

United Nations may send a verification team back to Lebanon following reports that Syrian intelligence may not have completely withdrawn from the country, Secretary General
Kofi Annan said.


“We are now receiving reports that there may be elements that are still there, and we are considering the possible return of the verification team to ascertain what is going on,” Annan told reporters.


A UN verification mission to Lebanon had reported on May 23 that Syria had “fully” withdrawn troops from its neighbour, in compliance with UN resolution 1559 steered through the Security Council in September by France and the United States.


The mission also said it had found no remaining trace of the Syrian intelligence services, but added that the clandestine nature of such agencies made it difficult to establish their complete withdrawal.

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Hizbullah chief urges political ‘reconciliation’ in Lebanon

BEIRUT: Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called for political “reconciliation” and urged Lebanon’s politicians to put “the past behind” them. Nasrallah’s remarks came as he urged Shiites to support Hizbullah’s decision to put up a candidate for Sunday’s Mount Lebanon polls on the electoral list of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and former foes, the right wing Christian Lebanese Forces.


Hizbullah’s leader said: “Our alliance is based on forgetting the past. I am calling for gathering around a slogan said by late president and Phalanges leader Bashir Gemayel during the civil war, the slogan of ‘Lebanon is 10,452 square meters.'”


Lebanon remains under international pressure to disarm Hizbullah which last month claimed it had 12,000 rockets aimed at northern Israel.


Washington insists the resistance group a terrorist organization, but Hizbullah’s believes its clean sweep in last week’s round of voting is proof of public support for the group’s right to maintain its arms.

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Annan Dispatches Envoy for Lebanon Talks

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer, UNITED NATIONS – A top U.N. envoy was instructed Monday to travel to Syria “as soon as possible” to see President Bashar Al-Assad about Lebanon, but U.N. officials would not say why the mission was deemed urgent. The announcement that Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked Terje Roed-Larsen to travel to Damascus came three days after the United States said it would like the U.N. Security Council to expand an international inquiry into former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination to include the killing of an anti-Syrian journalist.Roed-Larsen stepped down as Annan’s top U.N. Mideast envoy last year, but agreed to become his special envoy for implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which was adopted in October and called for Syria to withdraw all military forces and intelligence operatives. It also called for disarmament of all Lebanese militias.

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Hezbollah scores landslide win in south Lebanon vote

BEIRUT (AFP) – The pro-Syrian Hezbollah coalition scored a landslide win in round two of Lebanon’s elections and claimed a clear mandate for anti-Israel guerrillas to keep their weapons in defiance of international calls for disarmament. The mighty Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the rival movement Amal, campaigning on a pledge to keep on with the armed resistance against Israel, won all 23 seats in southern Lebanon, Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa said Monday. In the first elections to be held since Syria was forced by intense global pressure to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April, the two groups maintained their grip on the volatile southern region still intermittently rocked by border clashes with Israel.

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Lebanon elections head south under a cloud

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Voters go to the polls in south Lebanon on Sunday in the second phase of parliamentary elections with the country rattled by the assassination of a prominent anti-Syrian journalist. A slate led by Syria’s allies Hizbollah and Amal groups looks assured of victory in the Shi’ite Muslim heartland bordering Israel but the killing of columnist Samir Kassir on Thursday has again raised the stakes at the polls.The disparate anti-Syrian opposition put some of its differences aside to join voices in blaming Syria and its security allies for the killing and called for the resignation of President Emile Lahoud, a close ally of Damascus.Several opposition figures said his resignation would be the new parliament’s main task after the May 29-June 19 elections. The opposition called on Friday for a gathering at a crossroads leading to Lahoud’s presidential palace on Monday “to declare the responsibility of the chief of the Lebanese-Syrian security regime for the series of assassinations.”

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