Syria takes hard line against forces on its border with Lebanon

Lebanon’s prime minister, caught in a vice of conflicting demands by Israel and Syria, side-stepped Israeli insistence that international forces be deployed on the Syrian border and said today that Lebanese troops already there posed no threat to its prickly Arab neighbour.

Israel has said its air and sea blockade – imposed on Lebanon at the start of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict on July 12 – would remain in place until soldiers from an expanded UN peacekeeping force took up positions along the Lebanese-Syrian border to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah.

Syria virtually controlled Lebanon for nearly three decades before withdrawing troops last year, and as Israel conducted the 34-day war against Syrian-allied Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the Damascus leadership stood virtually silent.

No longer. President Bashar Assad lashed out at the Israeli demand for international peacekeepers on his border with Lebanon and termed it a “hostile” move aimed at damaging relations between the neighbours. He said it was unprecedented for international forces to police a border between two countries that have not been at war.

Were UN soldiers to take up policing the predominantly mountainous frontier, the task could prove nearly impossible. Lebanon has two official crossings on the Syrian border in the east, at Masnaa on the Beirut-Damascus road, and one between Baalbek in Lebanon and Homs, Syria. In addition, there are two official crossings in the north.

But there are dozens of dirt tracks running between the countries through the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, routes that have been used for centuries by smugglers and many of them able to carry modern-day vehicles.

What’s more, it was unclear how much in need Hezbollah was of a weapons resupply. Although Israel said Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets into the north of the country, the guerrillas were believed to have an arsenal of more than 12,000 of the weapons when the fighting started.

John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a Washington think tank, has said that before the war Hezbollah was believed to have a 12,000-13,000 missile stockpile.

There has been wide speculation, as well, that the Syrian army left behind a huge weapons supply for Hezbollah as it withdrew in April 2005. Hezbollah draws primary backing from Damascus and Iran, which established the guerrilla group and its political arm in the Bekaa Valley in 1982.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora’s remarks in a French television interview underlined the difficulties he now faces in trying to meet the poles-apart requirements of Israel and the Syria.

“We have deployed the Lebanese army on the border (with Syria), and we have no intention of showing any hostility toward Syria. We want cordial relations with Syria and we are taking care of the issue of the border to prevent any infiltration into Lebanon.

“This (UN peacekeepers on the border with Syria) has to be taken up by the Cabinet for a decision about this matter,” Saniora said, according to a partial transcript of the interview released by his office.

The Lebanese president added his voice to the issue Thursday, calling on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to force Israel to lift its blockade as called for in the UN-brokered ceasefire.

“Eleven days after Resolution 1701 went into effect, Israel’s aggressive acts against Lebanon have not stopped yet,” President Emile Lahoud said in a statement released by his office.

“Israeli forces are still occupying Lebanese territory in the south. The (Israeli) land, sea and air blockade is still imposed on Lebanon. All follow-ups made by the Lebanese state did not yield any results, while we hear conditions from here and there infringing on Lebanese sovereignty and harming independence and freedom of decision-making which Lebanon cannot accept,” he added.

Four days after the cease-fire went into effect, the Lebanese army began setting up checkpoints near dozens of illegal border crossings with Syria in a bid to help prevent arms smuggling as well as the movement of people and goods, a Lebanese military official said. He said the army plan covers an estimated 60 illegal border crossings with Syria in northern and eastern Lebanon.

UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said Sunday that 2,000 Lebanese soldiers have been deployed so far along Lebanon’s eastern border near Syria with the goal of eventually having 8,600 along the border. Some 1,000 Lebanese soldiers also have been deployed along Lebanon’s coastline, he said.

The international community has been slow to come together in volunteering troops for the UN-mandated force. European Union foreign ministers were taking up the issue in Brussels tomorrow under heavy pressure to move quickly to get at least a vanguard of the expanded force on the ground next week.

Geneva-based representatives of aid agencies expressed concern over the growing dispute surrounding the Lebanon-Syria border, but refused to comment directly on Syria’s apparent threat to seal the frontier if international troops were deployed along it.

Yesterday Finland’s foreign minister, Erkki Tuomioja, came out of a meeting with his Syrian counterpart and said Damascus threatened to close the border if that happened.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her Italian counterpart on Thursday urged the international community to act quickly to deploy an expanded UN force.

“Following the adoption of (UN) resolution 1701 there is a real need for a full and quick implementation,” Livni said following a meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema. “We are being watched also by the extremists who want to inflame the region, and this will test the strength and determination of the international community,” she added.

“The real big question is whether the international community is willing to show determination in order to implement its own decisions,” she said.

Italy has said it was willing to lead the UN force and would send 3,000 soldiers to supplement the current 2,000-strong UNIFIL force in southern Lebanon and led by the French.