Shiite Forces in Lebanon having their Day!
Pro-U.S. Influence in Lebanon Slipping Away!
A Pro-U.S. Lebanese Party will eventually Lose!
Pro-Syrian Party will control Lebanon before 2011!
Why Did Hizbullah Attack the Lebanese Government?
Shiites were Caught Linking to Syrian Army Intelligence
Allowing Syria to monitor internal activities across Lebanon
Plus the personnel traveling in and out of the Lebanese Airport
Excerpt 1 from Naharnet Article was Hizbullah’s excuse to Attack
May 10, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt 1 from Naharnet
Syria’s Intelligence Operates Via Hizbullah Lebanon Communications
(Naharnet-Lebanon)
Hizbullah has linked its private telephone networks to the Syrian Army’s communications system as well as to Syria’s mobile telephone network, allowing Syrian intelligence to operate freely in Lebanon and avoid Lebanese controls, al-Mustaqbal reported Tuesday.
Excerpt 2 from Arutz Sheva tells what Hizbullah did when Lebanon Government tried to remove Hizbullah’s spy videos from Lebanon’s International Airport.
Begin Excerpt 2 from Arutz Sheva
Nasrallah Warns Against Disarming Hizbullah
Hizbullah chief terrorist Hassan Nasrallah claimed the Lebanese government had declared war by outlawing its telecommunications network, which it called “the most important part of the weapons of the resistance.”
The government deemed the independent Hizbullah land lines and private communications system a threat to national security. After a marathon 11-hour meeting that stretched from Monday night into Tuesday morning, the Cabinet also decided to fire airport security chief Brig.-Gen. Wafiq Shoukair for alleged ties to the terrorist group, further enraging Hizbullah. It also said Hizbullah has been flying weapons from Iran on a routine basis.
Excerpts 3 and 4 are a review of what has transpired in the conflict.
Excerpt 3 – What Has Happened.
Begin DEBKAfile Exclusive
Exclusive: Lebanese army chief defies government as Syria steps in to back Hizballah
s conquest of Beirut districts
May 9, 2008, 6:19 PM (GMT+02:00)
At least 11 people were killed Friday, May 9, Day 3 of fierce clashes between Hizballah and pro-government forces, the worst since the 1975-90 civil war. At noon, Syrian Social Nationalist Party’s units entered Beirut to support Hizballah’s advancing occupation of Sunni West Beirut districts.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that Thursday night, army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman refused to obey prime minister Fouad Siniora’s order to declare a state of emergency for the crisis created by Hizballah’s declaration of war against the government.
The general warned that if the government enacted an emergency, he would order the troops to return to barracks.
The SSNP is a Greek Orthodox arm of Syrian military intelligence.
Hizballah and fellow Shiite Amal fighters were thus able to seize control of most of pr-government Sunni West Beirut in clashes that have spread to other parts of the Lebanon while the government was left unprotected.
The urban warfare shut down Lebanon’s port and all but closed the international airport, with burning barricades on major highways in Beirut.
The army has only interfered in extreme situations. Friday, soldiers rescued the anti-Syrian majority leader Saad Hariri and allied Druze leader Walid Jumblatt when their mansions were surrounded and attacked by Shiite forces, but they did not make the assailants move out. The Lebanese army, half of whose members are Shiites, thus permitted Hizballah and Amal clinch their control of the Sunni neighborhoods.
The Lebanese army also took over the pro-government Future TV station and newspaper owned by Hariri after they were blown up. The army agreed to keep the station off the air.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the United States, France and Israel are watching passively as Lebanon falls to Iran’s surrogate terrorist group Hizballah. Since the 2006 Lebanon war, prime minister Ehud Olmert has insisted improbably that the conflict had left Hizballah seriously weakened.
Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday night that the only way to stop the violence was for the “black gang” ruling the government to withdraw its decisions to close his military telecommunications network and restore Hizballah loyalists to key positions at Beirut international airport.
Excerpt 4 – What Is Happening Now
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
Saniora calls on army to remove Hizbullah from the streets
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST
May 10, 2008
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called on the nation’s army Saturday to restore law and order across Lebanon and remove gunmen from the streets, accusing Hizbullah of staging an armed coup.
The dream of democracy in Lebanon has been dealt “a poisonous stab by the armed coup carried out by Hizbullah and its allies,” he said, saying Beirut was an “occupied, besieged” city.
Addressing the army, he said: “I call on it once again to impose security on all, in all areas, deter the gunmen and immediately remove them from the street … to restore normal life.”
In his nationally televised speech, Saniora also said Lebanon could no longer tolerate Hizbullah having weapons – signaling that the US-backed government was toughening its stand against the Shiite opposition group despite its loss of ground in street fighting in Beirut.
But despite his tough talk, Saniora’s embattled government appeared unable to move against Hizbullah or force the army to act.
The army has stayed out of the fighting and has deployed troops in the last 24 hours.
Saniora also appeared to be retreating from the government decisions that triggered the street confrontation, offering a compromise that would effectively shelve them. The offer, however, was unlikely to be accepted by Hizbullah and its allies who have already rejected a similar compromise from Sunni majority leader Saad Hariri earlier.
Saniora’s first comment since fighting erupted Wednesday came as conditions appeared to be mostly calm in Beirut’s Muslim sector a day after Shiite gunmen
swept through the area.
Elsewhere around the country, however, violence appeared to be on the rise.
Some 25 people have died in four days of clashes.
In a Sunni Muslim neighborhood of the capital, a Shiite shopowner opened fire on a funeral procession, killing two and wounding six, police and witnesses said.
In a mountain town east of Beirut, Hizbullah accused a pro-government Druse group of kidnapping two of its members and killing them.
A statement held Druse leader Walid Jumblatt “personally responsible” for the safety of a third Hizbullah man.
In Beirut’s western Muslim sector, though, the focus of the fighting, most Hizbullah gunmen had pulled out leaving just small bands of their Shiite Amal allies to patrol the streets.
The funeral shooting and the reported kidnapping and execution underlined the state of lawlessness and the sharpened sectarian tensions that have engulfed the country since Sunni-Shiite fighting erupted in the capital’s Muslim sector on Wednesday resulting in Hizbullah’s takeover of Sunni neighborhoods.
Hizbullah moved Thursday to seize the Sunni neighborhoods of Beirut in a show of force after its leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the government of “declaring war” on his group when it declared the organization’s communications network illegal and ordered the removal of the airport security chief for alleged ties to the group.
On Saturday, Beirutis cautiously ventured out in small numbers to streets held by both Lebanese troops and lingering b
ands of Shiite gunmen.
Beirut had a quiet night after the worst sectarian violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. But the violence moved outside the capital, leaving eight more people dead near the town of Aley late Friday. Ano ther civilian died in
the clashes in the southern city of Sidon.
Hizbullah has shut Lebanon’s airport by barricading the road leading to it. The seaport also was closed.
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