Concerns rise as arms flow to Lebanon

The United Nations expressed 'grave concern' last week about weapons being smuggled across the border from Syria.

from the August 7, 2007 edition

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The UN border team suggested weaning border residents from reliance on smuggling by promoting socioeconomic programs to provide alternative means of revenue. But the smugglers say they have heard similar promises before. In the mid-1990s, pledges by international donors to fund alternative agricultural crops helped eradicate the cultivation of hashish and opium poppies for which the Bekaa Valley was renowned. Although Lebanon was taken off the list of drug-producing countries in 1997, the promised funds never arrived, leaving farmers bitter and leading to a gradual return of hashish cultivation.

Ayoub and his three brothers make $20 each from every consignment of smuggled diesel fuel. His pickup truck can carry 40 60-liter (15-gallon) jerry cans, making a sizable profit shared between his comrades given that diesel in Syria sells at 13 cents a liter compared with Lebanon, where it retails at around 66 cents a liter.

"Diesel is our life," Ayoub says.

A future security force here – Lebanese or international – would not have to contend only with commercial smugglers. The hills around Yahfoufa are home to Hizbullah training camps.

On a 4,200-foot plateau six miles to the south of Yahfoufa lies a sprawling base belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, one of several military bases manned by pro-Syrian Palestinian factions close to the border with Syria. These bases are connected to Syrian territory by unpoliced dirt tracks and are reportedly used to smuggle weapons and militants into Lebanon.

Militants are a 'major obstacle'

The UN border team's report said that the presence of the Palestinian bases represents a "major obstacle to the notion of border security." Last year, the Lebanese government won a consensus to shut down the bases within a six-month time frame. But the decision went unfulfilled and it is unclear whether the overstretched Lebanese Army – engaged in a grueling two-month battle with militants in north Lebanon – has the capability to take on a fresh military confrontation.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that the path of Lebanon's 198-mile frontier with Syria has never been formally demarcated on the ground. The border was drawn up by French military geographers in 1920 and generally follows the peaks of the Anti-Lebanon mountain chain. But the boundary slashed through land possessed by Syrians and Lebanese, often leaving large tracts on the opposite side of the border from their owners.

Over time, confusion has grown over exactly where the border lies. An anti-Syrian Lebanese group last month released a report claiming that Syria continues to occupy some 177 square miles of Lebanon along the eastern border, about 4.5 percent of the country, despite the UN having confirmed the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon two years ago.

Nine miles east of the remote village of Aarsal, cherry and apricot trees grow on Lebanese soil but are farmed by Syrians under the protection of Syrian troops.

The spat over the territory, replicated elsewhere along the border, has led to gun battles.

"You sometimes find Syrian-owned land inside Lebanon and Lebanese-owned land inside Syria. It's all mixed up," says Mohammed Hojeiry, the mayor of Aarsal. "It's very important to put up markers on the border so everyone knows where it is."

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