lebanon, beirut, busy people, hizbollah march, Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanese Forces
sorry to blow up the blog-o-sphere, but shit's been going down, not that I've witnessed anything from my seaside apartment. It's been business as usual: teach some koreans, teach some more koreans, take the hard earned money from my friends in texas hold 'em.
I wrote this in a hurry so it might be a little unclear in some spots, but I was also weirded out because just across from us in the cafe we left only minutes ago, two latino's who looked semi-familiar, like berkeley familiar, kept staring at us. We didn't really know where we knew them from so we did nothing. Who the hell are they???
Whoever they are I hope they know what they're in for. People have been busy in this part of the world.
· On Monday, bottles were thrown at the Aounists (Free Patriotic Movement, the Christian group aligned with the opposition: Hezbollah, Amal, etc.) as they attempted to replace the banner of their leader, Aoun, in Sassine Square (a block from where Marina and I saw Borat) that was "torched and torn down by the LF (Lebanese Forces) after last week's assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel." Apparently hundreds of LF members, mostly young men accompanied by a few men in their fifties, hassled the Aounists and instigated fisticuffs until as many as 2000 troops and special police forces diffused a situation that could've turned ugly.
· The US got into the mix this week when Bush accused Damascus and Iran of "undermining the government in Lebanon," but when John Bolton was asked about a letter sent to the UN Security Council on Friday by the Syrian Government suggesting "Damascus may not cooperate with the tribunal because it was not consulted on the plan." He deflected the question by saying, "They haven't cooperated adequately from the beginning…" true enough, but that's being pretty rough for a country who refuses to even to have diplomatic relations with Syria.
· Tuesday, the Daily Star reported that the leader of the Syrian group Al-Tawheed Wal Jihad, "one of several militant organizations pursued by the Syrian Authorities," blew himself up as he attempted to cross the Syrian-Lebanese Border armed with a pistol and as many as nine fake I.D. cards. No one else was injured.
· also on Tuesday, "two loud explosions were heard by the residents who live near Maisera Mountain . . . in the Eastern Bekaa Valley." Residents in the area claimed the PFLP (Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine), now operating out of Syria with a training camp in the Bekaa valley area, cordoned off the blast zone in order to avoid injuries. Who knows what those guys are up to out there. Getting ready? …and if so, for what?
· An-Nahar reported on Tuesday that pro-Syrian "Fatah-al-Intifada" "posts" at the Nahr Al-Bared Refugee Camp in the North of Lebanon had been taken over Monday by a group calling itself "Fatah-al-Islam," considered by many as Al-Qaeda's branch in Lebanon. We already know that Al-Qaeda has been in Lebanon at least since last year, and more recently Robert Fisk has written an article in which he talked about the videos he's witnessed in which young Sunni men from the north of Lebanon pledge themselves to Al-Qaeda in Iraq as they cross the border into Syria, the stepping stone to the war, but this is an odd move.
· . . . and perhaps the most disturbing news of the day: Lebanese Forces Media denies that nine LF personnel with US and Israeli made weapons were arrested Monday. LF claims that the men in question were the bodyguards of Pierre Daher (not to be confused with the recently assassinated Pierre Gemayel), the general manager of satellite TV station LBCI. However, An Nahar and other media outlets reported that the nine men were veteran's of LF's "Collision and Swat" squad, "which gained notoriety for it's actions during the civil war," and were arrested during a training exercise in which "the men were shooting at targets from moving vehicles." hmmmmmm. Local daily papers reported the seizing, not just of US and Israeli weapons, but of maps leading to Michel Aoun's home and Michel Murr along with "unspecified monitoring systems." The Daily Star claims that the group has been "monitored by Lebanese Army Intelligence for quite some time."
Seriously, when I think of the "Lebanese Army Intelligence" I think of some fat guy sitting in a car, cursing in a mix of Arabic and French, smoking cheap cigarettes, becoming tangled in the strap of his binoculars whenever he reaches for his pack on the dash board. None-the-less this is weird, this is the same side that mourns the death of the recently assassinated Gemayel, practicing the same techniques that he was killed with using US and Israeli weapons, how odd. Remember, this is the same group, and the only group, who had the backing, that's right, THE BACKING of Israel during the civil war.
. . . on a sidenote, Marina just received an email from Timur Goksel, former spokesperson for UNIFIL with the info that Hizbollah will be staging their rally within the next 48 hours, most expect it to take place after the friday prayers.
I wrote this in a hurry so it might be a little unclear in some spots, but I was also weirded out because just across from us in the cafe we left only minutes ago, two latino's who looked semi-familiar, like berkeley familiar, kept staring at us. We didn't really know where we knew them from so we did nothing. Who the hell are they???
Whoever they are I hope they know what they're in for. People have been busy in this part of the world.
· On Monday, bottles were thrown at the Aounists (Free Patriotic Movement, the Christian group aligned with the opposition: Hezbollah, Amal, etc.) as they attempted to replace the banner of their leader, Aoun, in Sassine Square (a block from where Marina and I saw Borat) that was "torched and torn down by the LF (Lebanese Forces) after last week's assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel." Apparently hundreds of LF members, mostly young men accompanied by a few men in their fifties, hassled the Aounists and instigated fisticuffs until as many as 2000 troops and special police forces diffused a situation that could've turned ugly.
· The US got into the mix this week when Bush accused Damascus and Iran of "undermining the government in Lebanon," but when John Bolton was asked about a letter sent to the UN Security Council on Friday by the Syrian Government suggesting "Damascus may not cooperate with the tribunal because it was not consulted on the plan." He deflected the question by saying, "They haven't cooperated adequately from the beginning…" true enough, but that's being pretty rough for a country who refuses to even to have diplomatic relations with Syria.
· Tuesday, the Daily Star reported that the leader of the Syrian group Al-Tawheed Wal Jihad, "one of several militant organizations pursued by the Syrian Authorities," blew himself up as he attempted to cross the Syrian-Lebanese Border armed with a pistol and as many as nine fake I.D. cards. No one else was injured.
· also on Tuesday, "two loud explosions were heard by the residents who live near Maisera Mountain . . . in the Eastern Bekaa Valley." Residents in the area claimed the PFLP (Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine), now operating out of Syria with a training camp in the Bekaa valley area, cordoned off the blast zone in order to avoid injuries. Who knows what those guys are up to out there. Getting ready? …and if so, for what?
· An-Nahar reported on Tuesday that pro-Syrian "Fatah-al-Intifada" "posts" at the Nahr Al-Bared Refugee Camp in the North of Lebanon had been taken over Monday by a group calling itself "Fatah-al-Islam," considered by many as Al-Qaeda's branch in Lebanon. We already know that Al-Qaeda has been in Lebanon at least since last year, and more recently Robert Fisk has written an article in which he talked about the videos he's witnessed in which young Sunni men from the north of Lebanon pledge themselves to Al-Qaeda in Iraq as they cross the border into Syria, the stepping stone to the war, but this is an odd move.
· . . . and perhaps the most disturbing news of the day: Lebanese Forces Media denies that nine LF personnel with US and Israeli made weapons were arrested Monday. LF claims that the men in question were the bodyguards of Pierre Daher (not to be confused with the recently assassinated Pierre Gemayel), the general manager of satellite TV station LBCI. However, An Nahar and other media outlets reported that the nine men were veteran's of LF's "Collision and Swat" squad, "which gained notoriety for it's actions during the civil war," and were arrested during a training exercise in which "the men were shooting at targets from moving vehicles." hmmmmmm. Local daily papers reported the seizing, not just of US and Israeli weapons, but of maps leading to Michel Aoun's home and Michel Murr along with "unspecified monitoring systems." The Daily Star claims that the group has been "monitored by Lebanese Army Intelligence for quite some time."
Seriously, when I think of the "Lebanese Army Intelligence" I think of some fat guy sitting in a car, cursing in a mix of Arabic and French, smoking cheap cigarettes, becoming tangled in the strap of his binoculars whenever he reaches for his pack on the dash board. None-the-less this is weird, this is the same side that mourns the death of the recently assassinated Gemayel, practicing the same techniques that he was killed with using US and Israeli weapons, how odd. Remember, this is the same group, and the only group, who had the backing, that's right, THE BACKING of Israel during the civil war.
. . . on a sidenote, Marina just received an email from Timur Goksel, former spokesperson for UNIFIL with the info that Hizbollah will be staging their rally within the next 48 hours, most expect it to take place after the friday prayers.
posted by miguella guerilla at 5:29 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home