Syria is chokingly squeezing Lebanon's economic neck in an all-out trade war with which the Assad regime is evidently taking revenge for Syria's humiliating ouster after 29 years of a ruthless reign of terror that no one dared to resist before ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination. That was the conclusion drawn by An Nahar and the rest of Beirut media Sunday after Syria's extension of tortuous restrictions against thousands of transit trade trucks stranded at the Abdeh-Dabboussieh northern border crossing to the Masnaa-Jdeidet Yabous passageway on the eastern Lebanese frontier on Saturday.

"Syria has shuttered its land borders with Lebanon by closing the last border outlet for Lebanon's own products to the rest of the Arab world as well as the transit trade," An Nahar said. It noted a sharp drop in fruits and vegetable prices in local markets, "causing considerable loss to the Lebanese economy and leaving the market open to Syria's products."

Long convoys of cargo trucks are queuing on the Masnaa-Jdeitet Yabous border checkpoint similar to the Abdeh-Dabboussieh 3-week-old ordeal, with drivers at both locations screaming for government help to rescue their perishable cargos.

But the Assad regime has turned a deaf ear to separate pleas for reopening the border from caretaker Premier Mikati and Premier-Designate Seniora, the local media said.

Nasri Khoury, the Secretary-General of the Higher Lebanese-Syrian Council that was the constitutional cover for Syria's tutelage before the April evacuation, said he had understood from Syrian authorities that the newly introduced border restrictions were prompted by fears of potential smuggling of arms or terrorists from Lebanon to Iraq via Syria.

These fears, Khoury said in response to Lebanese pleas for mediation, have prompted the Syrian authorities to search carefully every cargo truck and every passenger bus from Lebanon into Syrian territory, which caused the current jam, An Nahar reported.

Lebanese authorities are taking Syria's official alibi with a grain, convinced that the Assad regime was out to punish Lebanon for shaking off Syria's hegemony rather than blocking the transit of terrorists to Iraq. (Naharnet)