FDD

Lebanon's Officers Under Terror Attack? (WP)

On December 12, a top Lebanese Army commander, Brigadier General Francois Hajj, was killed in a Terrorist bombing in the suburb of Baabda southeast of Beirut.  Hajj, 54, who was close to army commander Michel Sleiman and tipped to be his successor, was killed along with his bodyguard in a rush-hour blast. This was the first assassination of a high ranking officer of the Lebanese Armed Forces in decades. The first set of questions is: Why was he murdered, who may have perpetrated this terror attack and what could be the consequences of this dramatic development?

1) General Francois Hajj was born in the Christian town of Rmeish in southern Lebanon. His home village had a history of resistance against Terror forces since the late 1960s. Many of its inhabitants enrolled in the Lebanese Army over the past decades. A number of them were involved in opposition to the Syrian occupation and Hezbollah. Hajj joined the Lebanese army Academy in 1972 and graduated in 1975. He also commanded the Special Forces brigades (Maghawir) before he was promoted to LAF operation chief. According to many sources in Lebanon, he was selected to become the next commander of the Lebanese Army. Hence, the assassination aimed at preventing Francois Hajj from being appointed by the next President, yet to be elected, as the top military man in Lebanon. General Michel Soleiman, who has been nominated by the majority coalition in Parliament for the Presidency was grooming Hajj to become his successor. In addition the slain commander had in past months and years refused to accept Hezbollah’s exclusive areas of control in south Lebanon and in the Bekaa valley. Moreover he was credited for coordinating the Lebanese Army offensive against the Fatah Islam Terror group in Nahr al Bared camp in north Lebanon over the summer. The strike can be understood as a message to the Lebanese Army not to attempt to confront terror groups in the future, including Hezbollah.

Lebanon and the Cedars Revolution under attack (WP)

Walid Phares discusses the latest on Lebanon's Presidential Elections and the Cedar's Revolution. Listen to his interview on the Right Balance Radio Show [ Link .mp3 ]

Cedars Revolution set for defeat (WP)

The Cedars Revolution is on the verge of a crushing political defeat over the next few days, and at the hands of its own politicians.

Instead of electing a strong anti-terror president, the Lebanese members of parliament are trying to cut deals with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran to select a candidate who:

a) would not commit to disarming the terrorist organization, and

b) would not side with the world campaign against terrorism.

Some of these MPs are telling Lebanon's friends in Washington and Paris that "the pressure from Syria and Iran is too great and the counter-pressure from the U.S. and France is too low."

The Lebanese March 14 coalition, which was elected to parliament in 2005 after the Cedars Revolution, seems to have abandoned the policy of withstanding Syro-Iranian pressure and is now considering names of individuals who have never marched in the Cedars Revolution and who will not express the aspirations of the majority of the Lebanese people.

Syro-Iranian Massacre of Politicians in Lebanon (WP)

With the assassination of Lebanese MP Jebran Tueni in December 2006, months after the murder of political leaders George Hawi and Samir Qassir during the summer, the Syro-Iranian terror war room had opened a bloody hunt against the democratically elected Lebanese Parliament. After the withdrawal of regular Syrian forces from Lebanon in April 2005, Bashar Assad and his allies in Tehran designed a counter offensive (which we described then and later) aiming at crumbling the Cedars Revolution. One of the main components of this strategy was (and remain) to use all intelligence and security assets of Syria and Iran in Lebanon in order to “reduce” the number of deputies who form the anti-Syrian majority in the Parliament. As simple as that: assassinate as many members as needed to flip the quantitative majority in the Legislative Assembly. And when that is done, the Seniora Government collapses and a Hezbollah-led cabinet forms. In addition, if the Terror war kills about 8 legislators, the remnant of the Parliament can elect a new President of the Republic who will move the country under the tutelage of the Assad regime.

Badran on Killing of Walid Eido

An attack in Beirut today killed Walid Eido, a member of the anti-Syria block in the parliament. Eido — the seventh opponent of Damascus to be killed in two years — was a vocal opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanon. According to FDD Research Fellow Tony Badran, Eido’s death threatens the future of Lebanon’s democracy movement:

This is a continuing pattern by the terrorist Assad of targeting the majority's MPs.

There were warnings about the resumption of assassinations by the terrorist Syrian regime. They were apparently right.

For more on how Syria is targeting the pro-democracy parliamentarians and Syrian President Assad’s ruthless math, please click here.

The War for Lebanon (CM)

Is Syria using a Palestinian front group to start a war inside Lebanon? Barry Rubin says it is. More here.

Lebanon Update (ML)

The Lebanese army hit the Palestinian area at Nahr al-Bared outside Tripoli again yesterday. In my piece on this Wednesday, I wondered whether operations against the Fatah al-Islam militia in the camp would have much effect on the sleeper cells outside the camps. In my conversations with Lebanese friends today, the relation between the two — and the Lebanese army's strategy against them both — became clearer.

For the terrorist sleeper cells (al Qaeda, etc.) now implanted throughout Lebanon, the headquarter of the Fatah al-Islam militia and similar groups inside the Palestinian camps are critical bases of support. Hit those bases, and the sleeper cells are rendered less effective militarily, and more vulnerable to intelligence. In this connection, there are signs that the Bush administration has taken a high-level decision to buttress the Siniora government in the current crisis, and in keeping with the policy of strengthening the Lebanese army's capabilities in general, will be flying several large shipments of ammo and other supplies to it between today and tomorrow. This indicates a certain level of coordination and strategy, because American supplies would not be airlifted without some rational and convincing explanation of what they will be used for — i.e., something a lot more convincing than "we're going to pound those camps until they're sorry."

The picture on the ground in the camps also became clearer today. The head of the Paletinian Fatah organization in Lebanon (the real one, I mean) today released a statement pledging to whipe out the Fatah al Islam terrorist group, and claiming to have mustered some 300 heavily-armed fighters for an operation inside the camp at Nahr al-Bared. The statement, which was translated and read to me over the phone by a friend in Beirut, said that Palestinian civilians in the camp had been warned to leave because the battle against Fatah al Islam inside the camp is going to start tomorrow. Most appear to have left.

Beirut remains a ghost town, with little traffic or other activity on the streets. Since Sunday night, there has been a car-bombing every night except Tuesday — and on that day, security forces nabbed two car bombers on their way to targets. Expectations are high for another car-bombing any minute, although having stuck in Christian, Sunni, and Druze areas — the three pillars of the anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah government majority — the terrorists have already made their statement.

Loyola on Lebanon

Last summer the world watched in shock as Hezbollah initiated a deadly war with Israel. With the aftershocks of that conflict still rippling throughout the region, it appears Lebanon could be in for another bloody summer.

In an article today on National Review Online, FDD Visiting Fellow Mario Loyola argues that:

The Lebanese army is overburdened and understaffed, and must re-focus its efforts on routing out Hezbollah with the help of the international community.

Most of the suicide bombers — including those from Fatah al-Islam — belong to al-Qaeda sleeper cells operating outside of the refugee camps.

If approved by the U.N. Security Council, an expanded UNIFIL force would stop the flow of foreign fighters coming in from Syria.

Fatah al-Islam

Lebanese troops continued their siege of a Palestinian refugee camp today, as new signs emerged that their target — Fatah al-Islam, a militant group that follows al-Qaeda ideology — has been training fighters inside the camp for attacks in Europe, Iraq, and elsewhere. The fighting marks the bloodiest internal conflict since Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990.

Two experts from FDD, both natives of Lebanon, argue that Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni Muslim group which emerged late last year, receives financial support from the Syrian regime and is a direct threat to the democratically elected government in Lebanon.

Senior Fellow Walid Phares:

Fatah al-Islam aims at creating an ‘Emirate’ (Islamist principality as in the Taliban model) in the Sunni areas of Lebanon, and is planning on conducting operations similar to the ones in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq. But according to the Lebanese government and terrorism experts the group is being secretly supported by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad.

Research Fellow Tony Badran:

The group Fateh al-Islam, while made up of jihadists of different nationalities, is a group that has been smuggled through Syria, and which was born out of a Syrian-controlled proxy Fateh al-Intifada. The Syrian regime has long sent the message to the West that only it could control Islamists in Lebanon (which it has cultivated and sent there), if the West acquiesces to its renewed control over Lebanon. It is a classic case of the arsonist playing fireman.

Security Council Resolution Calling for Tribunal in Hariri Assassination (ML)

The United States, Britain and France on Thursday formally introduced a resolution in the U.N. Security Council that calls for the establishment of an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The resolution mandates the creation of a tribunal outside Lebanon with international judges and an international prosecutor under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which addresses threats to international peace and security. I've attached the full text of the draft resolution below.