Militants stir in Lebanese outposts
UN officials say that militants in 16 remote Palestinian outposts are adding guns and recruits to stir more trouble for the American-backed government.
from the July 11, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
UN report claims militants are rearming
At the end of June, a UN report on the resolution that ended last summer's Hizbullah-Israel war found that the PFLP-GC and Fatah Intifada had reinforced their positions in the Bekaa Valley after fighting broke out between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam in mid-May. Citing a detailed intelligence report compiled by the Lebanese Army, the UN said weapons including rockets, mortars, and antitank guns had been deployed in the bases.
At a PFLP-GC base on a 3,000-foot plateau over-looking the village of Qussaya in the eastern Bekaa, the group has installed multi-barreled rocket launchers and pointed them at the nearby Lebanese Army base at Rayak airport, the UN report said.
"It is widely believed in Lebanon, including by the government, that the strengthening of Fatah Intifada and PFLP-GC outposts could not have taken place without the tacit knowledge and support of the Syrian government," the report added.
Syria has denounced the claims as "lies" and insists that it is doing all it can to prevent the smuggling of arms into Lebanon.
Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, a veteran security official with Fatah Intifada, says his group's weapons "will never be used against the Lebanese."
The proud member of the pro-Syrian faction insists that the group was created "to die for the Palestinian cause, not fight in Lebanon." At his office in the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, a poster proclaims the "martyrdom" of a fighter who blew himself up in Iraq in December 2003. It hangs next to pictures of Che Guevara and Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
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