Lebanese army restores calm in Tripoli, arrests wanted gunman

TRIPOLI: The Lebanese Army shot and wounded a wanted suspect during a shootout in Tripoli’s Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood on Sunday, a security source told The Daily Star.

The source added that the gunman, Mohammad Ahmad al-Arour, had been wanted for opening fire on troops Saturday and was now in their custody.

The source added that the situation had remained calm in the northern city of Tripoli throughout the day until the arrest was made.

“Troops pursued Arour and arrested him after a 30-minute clash that left two soldiers wounded, one of them seriously,” the source added.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army restored calm in the northern port city after nine people were killed in deadly clashes, which sent 2,000 families fleeing to safer areas, a security official said on Sunday.

“Calm has been restored in Tripoli and no gunfire or firing of rockets has been recorded since 5 p.m. on Saturday,” the official told AFP, asking not to be identified.

All through Friday night, militants from the rival Sunni Muslim and Alawite communities battled with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons in the latest violence to rock the Mediterranean city.

Bab al-Tebbaneh is a stronghold of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority while the inhabitants of Jabal Mohsen mainly support the parliamentary opposition led by Hizbullah.

Tensions between the two communities date back to Lebanon’s 1975-1990 Civil War.

Around 60 army vehicles fanned out across Tripoli over the weekend, forcing the shooting to die down.

An army statement said its troops “will use force if necessary to protect civilians and their property and bar armed presence” on the streets.

“Our forces are conducting patrols and have established checkpoints to check the identities of all persons, so as to prevent any theft or infringement on private and public property,” the army statement added.

A 10-year-old boy and two women were among those killed on Friday while 50 other people were wounded after two attempts to secure a cease-fire went unheeded.

On Friday night, Lebanon’s newly-appointed Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud headed an

emergency meeting that joined officers of the Internal Security Forces’ (ISF) North Regional Command and ISF head Major General Ashraf Rifi.

“Tripoli is very dear to our hearts, and today we stand by the security forces, who are making every effort and sacrifice possible to be at the side of the people,” Baroud said after the meeting.

The interior minister stressed that security forces were working in coordination with the army command and under the direction of President Michel Sleiman.

Baroud said “firmness and decisiveness” were the tactics necessary to solve the sporadic violence in Tripoli.

“I think that this is what the people await, and we stand by them throughout the chaos, chaos that is totally unacceptable by all citizens,” he added.

Baroud refused to go into details on the military’s tactics “in order to preserve the security plan that was drafted and is being developed.”

“Over the next few hours, we will work to reduce damage and human and material losses,” he said.

In remarks published by the As-Safir daily on Saturday, Democratic Gathering leader MP Walid Jumblatt urged Tripoli’s feuding factions to halt acts of violence, saying factional violence “only serves foreign agendas.”

Jumblatt said the repercussions of such clashes would save no side, warning against the revival of extremist movements.

He said the Sunnis and Alawites “have a joint history of struggle in defense of Lebanon and its Arab belonging.”

Lebanon has been hit by sporadic outbreaks of violence despite a power-sharing deal between rival political factions in May which led to the election of Sleiman as president and the creation of a unity Cabinet.

The latest unrest came after the new Cabinet hit snags in deliberations aimed at drawing up a policy agenda ahead of a parliamentary vote of confidence which would enable the government to be officially installed.

“This is a political conflict between the Lebanese. Rather than go to the constitutional institutions they are reverting to the use of weapons,” an army official told AFP.

Many shops remained shuttered for the third consecutive day in Tripoli on Sunday and the streets were largely deserted as families who had fled the battle zones Friday waited for a return to calm before going home, an AFP correspondent said. – The Daily Star, with AFP

US wants Lebanon to talk to Israel about Shebaa

BEIRUT: A US initiative to resolve the dispute over the occupied Shebaa Farms is still on the table, and is being considered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, An-Nahar newspaper’s correspondent in Washington on Wednesday quoted an American official as saying.

“The essence of the proposal is that Lebanon engages in indirect negotiations over the fate of Shebaa Farms, either through United Nations mediation or through an intermediary of the Tripartite Military Committee that groups Israel, Lebanon, and the UN,” An-Nahar said.

The same official and other US officials told An-Nahar that placing the territory under UN guardianship following an Israeli withdrawal, as Lebanon has demanded, would not be possible “before the final status of the zone has been determined.”

“The officials argue that Lebanon must engage in negotiations with the Jewish state before any Israeli pullout from the Farms,” the daily reported.

The Shebaa Farms is adjacent to the Syrian Golan Heights, on Lebanon’s southeast border. Both Syria and Lebanon have publicly stated that the land is Lebanese. Israel, which invaded the land in 1967 along with Syrian territories, refuses to withdraw from the farms.

According to one US official, quoted by An-Nahar, “although the US acknowledges that Lebanon cannot engage in direct negotiations with Israel, it contends that Beirut’s previous pretexts that it cannot hold indirect talks with the Jewish state are no longer valid, in view of the indirect Turkish-brokered Syrian-Israeli negotiations and the recent German-mediated prisoner swap deal between Hizbullah and Israel.”
The US officials said that those indirect negotiations had created “a new dynamic” that Lebanon could exploit if it wished to “break way from its traditional thinking with regard to indirect talks with Israel.”

Regarding the Lebanese-Syrian border demarcation, the US officials told An-Nahar that Beirut must ask Damascus “publicly and clearly” to define the border between the two countries in the Shebaa Farms area.

They stressed that statements by Syrian officials regarding Lebanon’s ownership of Shebaa Farms had “no legal weight,” since the UN accepts only official agreements between states accompanied by the submission of joint documents to the world body that confirm that.

The officials also said that Lebanon must take “brave decisions” with regard to the Shebaa Farms, which confirm its capacity to make “sovereign decisions” in its dealings with Syria and Israel.

They said that Washington was willing to offer “technical and logistical” assistance, as well as political support to the proposed indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel over the occupied zone. They added that the US could play the role of “a facilitator in the implementation of any agreement that might be reached.” – The Daily Star