State Dept. on Violence in Lebanon
21 May 2012
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesperson
May 21, 2012
STATEMENT BY MARK TONER, ACTING SPOKESPERSON
Violence in Lebanon
We are concerned by the security situation in Lebanon following the shooting of Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Wahad and Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Merheb near a Lebanese Army checkpoint in the northern region of Akkar. The United States expresses its sincere condolences for the loss of life. We welcome the commitment of the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces to conduct a swift and transparent investigation of the shooting incident, and we call on all parties to exercise restraint and respect for Lebanon’s security and stability.
INVESTIGATION:
BEIRUT: A military prosecutor ordered Monday that 22 Lebanese Army soldiers, including three officers, be detained for interrogation over the weekend killing of two Muslim preachers at a military checkpoint.
"Investigations are ongoing” into the killings of Sheikh Ahmad Abdel-Wahed and Sheikh Mohammad al-Mereb, prosecutor Saqr Saqr told The Daily Star.
The prominent anti-Assad Muslim preacher and his assistant were shot and killed Sunday at a Lebanese Army checkpoint in Kwaikhat, in the northern province of Akkar.
Saqr said a committee set up by the Lebanese Army to look into the incident was under his personal supervision.
“I will travel to the north again today to continue the probe,” Saqr said, adding that an initial report on the investigation was not likely to come out before three days.
Akkar residents prepared Monday to lay to rest both Abdel-Wahed and Mereb. Meanwhile, Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani met with a delegation representing the head of the Lebanese Army, Gen. Jean Kahwagi, which was headed by Military Intelligence chief Edmond Fadel. Discussions centered on the investigation into the incident.
According to Qabbani's press office, the delegation told the mufti that the investigation was ongoing and would reveal the perpetrators behind the killing and bring them to account. The delegation expressed Kahwagi's insistence that the army does not support any specific side but that the military is for the Lebanese as a whole and that it is keen on preventing any clashes between citizens and the army and possible strife.
(Reprinted from Daily Star, Monday, May 21, 2012)
BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN TRIPOLI
On Patrol With the Army of Lebanon on Syria Street:
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: Sporadic armed clashes between opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad shook Tripoli’s fragile truce Wednesday, wounding eight people including a soldier despite a heavy Army presence in Lebanon’s second city.
Armed clashes broke out in the afternoon as a group of Bab al-Tabbaneh residents gathered in the Sheikh Omran quarter, chanting slogans in support of the Syrian uprising.
Sporadic shots could still be heard by Wednesday evening.
The Lebanese Army said in a statement that it raided a number of buildings from which gunfire emanated and arrested gunmen, denying media reports that troops have pulled out from Syria Street, which separates Bab al-Tabbaneh from Jabal Mohsen, a center of pro-Assad gunmen.
“Upon the exchange of gunfire with light arms by gunmen in Jabal Mohsen, Bab al-Tabbaneh and Qibbeh, Army units accurately responded against the sources of the gunfire, and it is still carrying out swift raids on buildings from which shooting takes place,” said an Army statement.
It said troops arrested several gunmen and confiscated arms and ammunition, adding that one soldier was lightly wounded during the clashes.
(As reported by Antoine Amrieh in the Daily Star, May 17, 2012
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MARTIAL LAW IN LEBANON: (Daily Star-May 16, 2012 By Antoine Amrieh)
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: The Lebanese Army brought an end Tuesday to three days of clashes between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli which left at least seven people dead and over 100 wounded.
Although hundreds of troops backed by armored vehicles and Internal Security Forces deployed to the city’s battle-torn streets in the early hours of the day, sporadic minor clashes in several areas threatened the tenuous cease-fire that Lebanese politicians from across the political divide praised.
Meanwhile, residents in the Abeed neighborhood in Mina panicked when they spotted a gunman on the streets, prompting the Army to boost security measures in several parts of the city.
Despite minor security incidents between armed men on the streets and security personnel, soldiers installed checkpoints and conducted patrols, including along Syria Street, which runs between Bab al-Tabbaneh, whose residents oppose Assad, and Jabal Mohsen, whose residents back the embattled leader. |
DAILY STAR, May 14, 2012
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: Fighting with assault rifles and grenades between opponents and supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad escalated in the northern city of Tripoli Monday, killing five people and wounding at least 10, security sources said. The sources said four men died in the mainly pro-Assad neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, while a fifth person was killed near Bab al-Tabbaneh, a mainly by anti-Assad district of the port city. Tension and fear had gripped Tripoli earlier Monday after both political and security efforts failed to maintain a cease-fire along the demarcation lines between the rival neighborhoods.
Armed men on motorcycles were seen on Tripoli’s Azmi Street for the first time since clashes broke out late Saturday evening. Azmi Street is outside the battle zone. Loudspeakers on mosques in Beddawi, Wadi an-Nahla and Jabal al-Beddawi repeated warnings to tenants living on upper-level floors to evacuate for fear they could be wounded as a result of RPG fire in the area, the National News Agency (NNA) said. Some schools in north Lebanon did not open due to the fighting. Gunbattles, which erupted after midnight Saturday, pitted opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the mainly Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh against Assad supporters in the mostly Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen. Three people, including a Lebanese Army soldier, were killed in the weekend fighting. The violence broke out after tension spiked Saturday over the arrest of Shadi Mawlawi. Mawlawi and five other Lebanese suspects were charged Monday of belonging to an “armed terrorist group ... with the intent to carry out terrorist acts inside and outside of Lebanon.” Mawlawi was reportedly lured by the General Security – under the pretext that he would receive health care – to an office of Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi’s welfare association in Tripoli.
The arrest of Mawlawi was condemned over the weekend by both Safadi and Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the latter having described the manner in which the detention was carried out as “unacceptable.” Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani added his voice Monday to those denouncing the detention. “[Qabbani denounced] the manner and the procedures of the detention,” a statement from Dar al-Fatwa said. He also urged the state to resolve the issue of Islamists detained without charge in Lebanese prisons, and voiced opposition to the practice. “Dar al-Fatwa does not accept the detention of people for years without charge [out of concern for] human rights, the dignity of the individual and [so that] their relatives are not harmed.” Some 300 prisoners were arrested on charges of fighting or aiding fighters during the 2007 armed clashes between the Lebanese Army and the Palestinian militant group Fatah al-Islam in the refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, in the north of the country.
Relatives of the prisoners have been protesting and demanding the detainees be released or receive a fair and speedy trial. Meanwhile, Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil ordered hospitals in Tripoli Monday to treat all the wounded from the clashes. Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Asiri again postponed a planned visit to Tripoli, the Saudi Embassy said in a statement. Asiri was due to visit Tripoli’s public hospital to check on the well-being of Syrian citizens wounded in the fighting in their country. Meanwhile, Sheikh Ahmad Assir, a Sunni preacher in the southern city of Sidon, described at a news conference Monday the Tripoli fighting as “very, very serious.” While he urged an end to the presence of weapons outside the authority of the Lebanese state, Assir also warned against provoking and disparaging the Sunni sect, which would not benefit coexistence. Tripoli MP Mohammad Kabbara, following a meeting at his residence Monday, said there was a conspiracy aimed at his city “because there is no political decision to end what is occurring and the meeting by the Higher Judicial Council headed by President Michel Sleiman did not [result in] a bona-fide decision to end what is happening.” The Future Movement lawmaker also called on Prime Minister Najib Mikati to resign over the affair. The NNA reported that Akkar MP Mouin Merhebi had earlier pulled out of the meeting at Kabbara’s residence and accused the Lebanese Army of not implementing the decisions by the Higher Defense Council and held the body responsible for any “drop of blood that is spilled or a life that is lost because of reticence to enter the area of clashes.”
In light of the clashes, the Higher Defense Council convened an emergency session Sunday under President Michel Sleiman, highlighting its keeness to protect civil peace. “The council discussed the security situation in the country in general and in the city of Tripoli in particular,” the council said after its meeting in Baabda Palace. “The council praised the role played by security bodies to restore security, arrest [members of] terrorist networks ... [and] prevent arms-smuggling from all Lebanese areas,” added the statement. The council gave instructions to the Army and security bodies and distributed tasks to relevant ministries and bodies. It kept its decisions confidential, as allowed under the law. |
THE SUNNIS OF BEIRUT:
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THE BATTLE FOR TRIPOLI:
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