Welcome to the land-of-do-as-you-like: Palestinian thugs wound Lebanese soldier, kidnap another

A Lebanese army patrol today dared to "approach" a NEW Palestinian base that was set up a day earlier in the land-of-do-as-you-like, aka Lebanon.  Result:

Pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrillas kidnapped and detained a Lebanese soldier for several hours after gunbattles near the Syrian border that left two people wounded, police said.

Khaled Ibrahim was snatched and then freed by guerrillas of the Damascus-based Palestinian group Fatah-Intifada, which is founded by a militant known as Abu Mussa, they told AFP.

Abu Fadi Hammad, the Lebanon representative of Abu Mussa's group, told AFP one guerrilla was wounded in the clashes and that the detained soldier had been handed back to the army.

A senior army official said a soldier was also wounded in the fighting in Wadi al-Asswad village of eastern Lebanon as troops and militants traded fire with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

The clash erupted after a Lebanese army patrol on a routine mission in the area came under fire when it tried to approach a new Palestinian base, the official said.

"They came under fire, without prior notice. They were trying to approach the base which had only been set up a day earlier," said the official, who did not wish to be named.

After the initial clash, the army sent in reinforcements backed by armored vehicles to the area, a stronghold of Abu Mussa's group, and the fighting stopped at around noon (0900 GMT) after two hours of clashes, police said.

In January, a similar incident occurred when another pro-Syrian Palestinian group, the PFLP-GC, shot and wounded two Lebanese policemen because their patrol was "speeding" near the Palestinian base. Last summer, an army surveyor was killed by shots fired from one of those bases. The army laid siege to the bases for a while and did nothing.

The clashes come a day after Lebanese leaders held a new round of reconciliation talks which reached an agreement in April on a number of contentious issues, including the dismantling of Palestinian bases in Lebanon within six months.

The agreement has yet to be implemented.

Yeah, and don't expect it to be implemented any time soon. Last month, this blog reported that the PFLP-GC added a new armed post south of Beirut.

With parliament and cabinet authority hijacked by the "National Dialogue", don't expect any effective measures to spread order, let alone disarm the thugs. Orders still come from Damascus, and "March 14" have little power over the army, which is still largely controlled by Syria's agents.

At the Dialogue session yesterday, the participants wasted the nation's time listening to a Nasrallah presentation arguing that Hizbullah's weapons are necessary to protect Lebanon against Israeli threats. Shamefully, the participants took Nasrallah's "ideas" home to study and formulate a response. As for the threats coming from the east, Nasrallah willing (InshaNasrallah), we will continue to ignore them.

Welcome to the land-of-do-as-you-like. Here, you fight for your favorite cause, using our bodies as shields and necks as foot stools. Order and rule of law are our enemies. The past is our future, and our fate is in your hands...   

UPDATE. The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling on Syria to take steps against arms movements into Lebanon, and "strongly encouraging" it to "respond positively to Lebanese requests to delineate their common border and establish full diplomatic relations, and called for the disbandment of all militias inside Lebanon." 

Comments

[frencheagle]

this story shows that the priority should be to disarm the palestinians INSIDE and outside their camps even, in compliance with the UN resolution 1559 before the hezbollah, as i stated long time ago. It is unacceptable to have a foreign force in Lebanon preventing this country to limit its laws of juridiction.

disarming the palestinian can be done by the lebanese army, they have the equipment for that and besides that it can be an exemple for the hezbollah to disarm. i believe the hezbollah can give its weapons through a negociation process when the threat of the palestinian weapons will be removed

however our dearlebanese governement lacks of balls to do so. is the future afraid of loosing their saudian support?

[Aounonymous]

thanks frenchbeagle! I was in need of comic relief, and as usual you delivered.

perhaps you should give up on the "billion dollar" business case you are working on, and convince Hizblabla to appoint you into a top position. your tireless defense of the militia has earned you the esteemed position of Nasrallah's brown-noser-in-chief. congrats!

[frencheagle]

@ aounonymous

as i already said, you should buy a brain to yourself, you are the real comic of all the blogs related to lebanon and maybe more

your comments are just .... empty of arguments, not to talk about your high level of bullshit

[frenchbeagle]

@ myself

why can't i just accept criticism every now and then? perhaps admit that i may actually be on the wrong side of the fence? speaking of fences, where's the latest fence that I can stand on the wrong side of?

@ Aounonymous

sorry for being such an argumentative prick. bear with me, my illusions of grandeur often get the best of my two brain cells.

@ Kais

i know you're not born yet, but I apologize in advance for wasting countless amounts of space on your father's excellent site.

[aounominus]

why m i so stupid?

why cant i oppose a valid statement, through an argumentation, whatever the argumentation is ? it seems i m having a missing brain