Lebanonwire.com | Lebanon's old security regime still alive and kicking: Siniora

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October 9, 2005

Lebanon's old security regime still alive and kicking: Siniora

BEIRUT, Lebanon, October 9 (Lebanonwire) -- Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said that the remnants of the Syrian-Lebanese security apparatus were “manipulating” the Palestinian camps and diverting attention from their true cause,” the Al-Mustaqbal daily said Sunday.

Siniora reminded Lebanese that despite ongoing efforts to establish law and order on the land, the old security regime is still alive and kicking. “The residents of Sidon and Arab nationalists have been foiling all efforts to sow discord between the Lebanese and the Palestinians," Siniora said at a Ramadan feast in Sidon last night.

Earlier on Saturday, Siniora met with at least a dozen Palestinian representatives where an agreement was reached to limit Palestinian weapons to within the refugee camps’ perimeters.

The first week of October began with Lebanon finally filling important posts left vacant when four officers of the old guards of the former security apparatus were arrested and jailed last August.

Meanwhile the army has been on constant vigil, patrolling Lebanon’s borders, erecting roadblocks and ambushing smugglers.

At 6pm Saturday, the army exchanged fire with a number of smugglers in Rashaya near the Syrian-Lebanese border, leaving two Syrian nationalists injured who were later transported to one of the hospitals in Biqaa.

The army issued a statement saying “the suspicious car without license plates was crossing a dirt road and ordered to stop when two armed individuals stepped out and tried to run,” adding “it was later found to contain smuggled items, including two Lebanese license plates, which were confiscated.”

The day before yesterday, the army raided a post for The Lebanese Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in Teenayel, Biqaa, and another for Fatah-Intifada, both being pro-Syrian Palestinian factions.

The PFLP-GC had fortified its positions in the Western Beqaa with new sand barriers and telecommunication equipment and installations, the daily said.

The Daily said that it has information that an internal Palestinian dialogue will soon take place followed by another one with Syrian officials and added that yesterday's representatives have asked the army to lift its siege from Palestinian locations as a condition to reach an accord regarding weapons outside the camps.