Hezbollah gunman shot Lebanon army aircraft

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s Hezbollah turned over to the authorities on Friday one of its gunmen who shot at an army helicopter and killed its pilot, security sources said.

The incident occurred on Thursday over Iqlim al-Touffah region. The area is controlled by the powerful political and military group Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Lebanon’s as-Safir newspaper reported that Hezbollah gunmen had targeted the aircraft because they thought it was Israeli. It said the helicopter had landed and taken off again in a training drill. Hezbollah gunmen in the area “thought that there was an Israeli landing attempt (under way) and opened fire in the direction of the helicopter, hitting it”, it said.

Hezbollah said earlier in a statement that it would cooperate fully with an investigation into the matter. The group described what happened as a “very tragic and painful incident”.

The army said on Thursday the helicopter had made a forced landing after it came under fire from “armed elements”. It said the incident was under investigation.

LEBANON: Gen. Petraeus discusses military aid with top officials

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, met with top Lebanese officials during a visit to Lebanon on Tuesday.

According to a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, Petraeus’ discussions with officials here focused on the U.S. “assistance to the Lebanese armed forces so it can maintain peace and stability, and safeguard the Lebanese people.”

In the fall, Petraeus will be in charge of U.S. military activities throughout the Middle East and northeastern Africa as the next chief of the U.S. Central Command.

“This is an exploratory visit to Lebanon, which is part of the region he will be responsible for,” Nizar Abdel-Kader, a former general in the Lebanese army and a columnist at a local newspaper, told Babylon & Beyond.

According to the state-run national news agency, Petraeus met with newly elected President Michel Suleiman, who was the former army chief, as well as Premier Fouad Siniora and Defense Minister Elias Murr.

“Petraeus was here to follow up on military aid allocated in the past two years,” a spokesman for Murr said. “This aid includes ammunition, logistical equipment and training.”

An army statement said that Petraeus also met acting army commander Shawki Masri and discussed how to “strengthen the army’s defensive capabilities, training and logistics.”

Patraeus’ visit comes after the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, Eric Edelman, met in May with Suleiman and asserted that Washington was committed to providing all the support needed to the Lebanese armed forces.

In the past few years, the U.S. increased dramatically its military aid to Lebanon, to $270 million in 2007.

But according to Abdel-Kader, the U.S. military assistance remains “insufficient” and mainly helps only in boosting the mobility of troops.

“The Lebanese army has asked for arms from the U.S. but the Jewish lobby pressured Washington not to provide weapons to Lebanon,” Abdel-Kader said. “What the Lebanese army needs is a defense system to protect its southern border with Israel.”

New York’s right-wing The Sun daily newspaper wrote that the U.S. general’s visit comes amid growing concerns in Israel regarding the rearmament of Hezbollah:

“With Israel increasingly concerned about Hezbollah’s military buildup on its northern border and about the growing political influence of the Iranian-backed organization in the Lebanese capital, General David Petraeus made an unannounced visit to Lebanon … [which] is an indication of the growing strategic prominence of Lebanon in the complex regional map.”

Israeli officials have said recently that Hezbollah has developed antiaircraft systems with the help of Iran and Syria. Last week, the Lebanese Shiite militant group denounced Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace and said that it was close to taking “operational steps” to stop them.

Earlier this week, the policy statement of the newly appointed Lebanese government recognized Hezbollah’s right to continue defending Lebanon.

— Raed Rafei, in Beirut

Security cabinet to discuss ‘new reality’ created in Lebanon

The security cabinet is expected to discuss on Wednesday the ramifications of a Lebanese cabinet policy statement giving Hizbullah the right of “resistance” to “liberate Lebanese territories.”

“This creates a new reality,” one Israeli diplomatic official said of the statement, which was approved Monday. “With the smuggling of arms into Lebanon from Syria, Iran’s involvement, and the fact that Hizbullah is now a part of the Lebanese government, there is a need to discuss the situation and formulate policy.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said in recent weeks that UN Security Resolution 1701, which put an end to the Second Lebanon War, was a failure because it did not stop the arms transfers from Syria to Hizbullah.

Wednesday’s meeting is a continuation of a security cabinet meeting held in early July, where the ministers were briefed by security and intelligence officials on the situation in Lebanon. The ministers were told at the time that there were some 2,500 non-uniformed Hizbullah men in southern Lebanon, and that the organization had trebled its pre-war military arsenal and now had some 40,000 short and medium-range missiles inside Lebanon.

However, Wednesday’s security cabinet meeting is expected to discuss not only the arms, but also the changing situation vis-á-vis Lebanon as a result of the approval of the policy statement, which says it is “the right of Lebanon’s people, the army and the resistance to liberate all its territories.”

The approval of this statement came after Lebanese political factions reached a compromise on Friday by releasing a vaguely worded draft statement implying Hizbullah could keep its weapons.

Diplomatic officials in Israel said these Lebanese government decisions would mean that the Lebanese government could be held accountable if Hizbullah carried out provocations against Israel.

Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri said some ministers in the majority had had reservations on the paragraph indicating Hizbullah could keep its weapons, but in the end, all ministers had voted in favor of the statement.

According to Mitri, some anti-Syrian ministers had wanted to add “under the state’s supervision” to the statement, but were not successful.

The parliament will now discuss the policy statement before giving Prime Minister Fuad Saniora’s 30-member national unity government an expected vote of confidence. The parliament meeting is expected later this week.

AP contributed to this report.

UNIFIL: We vow to try to rescue any soldier captured in Lebanon

he commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Claudio Graziano has distributed among his troops a contingency plan in case an Israel Air Force aircraft is shot down over Lebanon, the Lebanese daily al-Akhbar reported Tuesday.

The report came amid fears that Israeli aircraft would be targeted in southern Lebanon.

According to the Lebanese newspaper, in the event that an Israeli plane is shot down, UNIFIL troops must aim to reach the pilot first, and if the pilot is captured by armed militants, they must rescue him. The plan stipulates, however, that if the pilot is captured by the Lebanese army, nothing is to be done.

The Al-Akhbar report made top headlines on the Hezbollah television station Al-Manar on Tuesday, where Hezbollah spokesmen sharply criticized the UN peace keeping force.

UNIFIL denied the Al-Akhbar report, but issued a statement saying that it was committed to UN Security Council resolution 1701, which obligates the UN force to do everything in their power to save the lives of foreign soldiers that end up inside Lebanon. The statement added that UNIFIL also pledges to turn any foreign soldier that enters Lebanon over to the Lebanese army.

Resolution 1701 effectively ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 by setting out guidelines for both sides, and the UN force, to observe.

Last week, Lebanon’s new government completed its guidelines, which stipulate that Hezbollah has the right to fight against Israel to “recover the land occupied by Israel.”

While forces within Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora’s western-backed coalition demanded that military action to liberate occupied lands be carried out “under the aegis of the state,” now the government guidelines state that Hezbollah has what is essentially an independent right to take action.

“Lebanon, its army, its people and its resistance [Hezbollah] have the right to take action to liberate lands that have remained occupied at the Shaba Farms, the hills of Shuba village and the northern portion of the village of Ghajar, with all legitimate means possible, and to resist Israeli aggression.”

The new unity government in Lebanon was established after the parliamentary majority succumbed to the demands of the opposition, headed by Hezbollah, to take control of a third of the cabinet positions, effectively granting it veto power over government decisions. The new cabinet has 30 ministers, with 11 from the opposition.
Only Labor Minister Mohammed Fneish is a member of Hezbollah.

Finalizing the new government guidelines required 14 meetings of the ministerial committee charged with preparing the document.

Lebanon manifesto backs Hezbollah rights

A manifesto that will allow Lebanon’s new national unity government to take office was finally thrashed out on Friday after three weeks of negotiations, Information Minister Tareq Mitri said.

“”We reached a consensus after a long discussion,”” Mitri told reporters after the ministers involved in drafting the text reached agreement on the government policy after holding 14 separate sessions.

“”The committee has completed its task,”” Mitri said, adding that the policy statement will be submitted to the government before it goes to parliament for ratification.

Lebanon’s new national unity government agreed a policy statement on Friday which political sources said recognized Hezbollah’s right to use all possible means to liberate Israeli-occupied land.

“”The ministerial statement is drafted and forwarded to the cabinet with the agreement of all its members,”” Information Minister Tareq Mitri said after the meeting.

The policy statement recognizes the right of Lebanon, its government, people and resistance to use all means possible to regain Lebanese sovereignty over Shebaa Farms and nearby Israeli-held parts of Ghajjar village.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his majority coalition initially wanted to exclude mentioning Hezbollah’s right to regain Lebanese land by force and defer the subject to a national dialogue to be chaired by President Michel Suleiman.

The controversy over Hezbollah’s weapons intensified after its resistance fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a bid to swap them with Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Israel used the cross-border raid in July 2006 as a pretext to spark a devastating 34-day war on Lebanon.

The issue boiled to the surface again when Hezbollah led an armed takeover of large swathes of west Beirut in fierce fighting, after the government harassed the resistance movement.

The new cabinet, in which the opposition has the right of veto, was formed after weeks of bickering despite a May power-sharing agreement struck in Qatar that ended a protracted political dispute.

The statement also adopted economic reforms agreed at an international aid conference held in Paris in 2007.

(Source: middle east online.com)