Police State Security Pyramid Seen Crumbling after Azar's Leave

The Syrian-controlled security pyramid that has turned Lebanon into a police state is beginning to crumble ahead of the arrival of a U.N. mission of inquiry to conduct a full-blown investigation into ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, the Beirut press reported on Wednesday.
"The rain came," said An Nahar of the one-month leave given to the commander of the Lebanese army's intelligence service, Maj. Gen. Raymond Azar, as of Tuesday. He is one of the security commanders whose heads have been demanded since the Feb. 14 assassination. An Nahar implied the heads of the others will roll soon.

Azar told As Safir he had taken the decision to request the leave out of his own volition and without pressure from anyone. "I am ready along with my team for any reckoning or accountability. I wouldn't have requested the leave if I am not confident of my innocence," he said.

Hariri's Al Mustaqbal newspaper said Azar had already left Lebanon, implying he escaped before the U.N. commission's arrival, but did not report his destination. There was no official or independent confirmation immediately available for Azar's departure.

An Nahar and Al Mustaqbal suggested that Internal Security Forces (ISF) commander Brig. Gen. Ali Hajj was expected to follow Azar's suit. But he personally made an emphatic denial to An Nahar. Other media reports said whether or not Azar would return to his post depends on outcome of the forthcoming probe of the U.N. mission of inquiry into Hariri's murder.

In addition to Azar and Hajj, the opposition is insisting on sacking State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum plus Brig. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, chief of Lebanon's Surete Generale, Brig. Gen. Edward Mansour, head of the State Security apparatus and Col. Ghassan Tufaili, chief of the telephone espionage department.

General Georges Khoury, head of intelligence service of Mount Lebanon province, was appointed to fill the post in Azar's absence. Khoury was described by the Beirut press on Wednesday as the liaison officer between President Lahoud and Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir.

Syrian Air Defenses Withdrawn from Bekaa Valley

Syria is thinning out its military presence in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley although a clear-cut timetable for the second and final stage of evacuation has to be worked out by a joint military committee in the next two weeks.

Troops were seen dismantling Syria's air defenses across the Bekaa for a fifth straight day Sunday and crossing into central Syria in long convoys of armored personnel carriers, military trucks and armored cars towing dozens of anti-aircraft guns, international news agencies reported on Monday.

One convoy of 35 military trucks loaded with soldiers, equipment, ammunition and towing anti-aircraft guns crossed into Syria proper at the Masnaa border checkpoint late Sunday, The AP reported.

The convoys abandoned positions in the Deir Zanoun hills near Anjar in the valley close to the border and near a Syrian army radar station in the central Lebanese mountains.

Syrian soldiers also were dismantling eight other positions near the city of Baalbek and were to leave after midnight, according to The AP.

The AFP said Syrian troops and their military equipment evacuated positions at the Baidar pass in 10 military trucks at nightfall Sunday and crossed into Syria, towing several pieces of ground-to-air artillery.

"The withdrawals that took place in the Bekaa involved only air defenses," The AFP quoted a Syrian officer as having said late Sunday. "We finished with these positions today. The rest will take place after the meeting of the joint Syrian-Lebanese military commission," which is scheduled for early April.

US Condemns March 26 Bombing in Beirut

Lebanon: Beirut Bombing

The United States strongly condemns the bombing which took place in north Beirut the evening of March 26. We note that this is the third bombing since March 19.
We call on the Lebanese authorities to exercise their responsibility to the Lebanese people to provide for their security and to identify and bring to justice those responsible for these acts.
The Lebanese people have the right to determine their own political future in a climate free of fear and intimidation. This cannot happen while Syrian military and intelligence forces remain in Lebanon, where they are a source of instability. Syria must withdraw completely and immediately from Lebanon, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559.
2005/355 Released on March 26, 2005
Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State

U.N. report points finger at Syria

- A fact-finding team investigating last month's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has blamed Syria's government for the political tension that preceded the killing, according to a U.N. report released Thursday. The government of Syria "interfered" with governance in Lebanon in a heavy-handed way that was "the primary reason for the political polarization that ensued." "It is obvious that this atmosphere provided the backdrop for the assassination of Mr. Hariri," the report says. The investigative team was assembled by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to look into "the causes, circumstances and consequences of the assassination," which resulted in large-scale demonstrations against Syria's troop presence in Lebanon and the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami's pro-Syrian government. The massive bomb blast along Beirut's waterfront killed 20 people and wounded more than 100. A spokesman for Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said Annan called the president and outlined the report's contents. Lahoud urged Annan "to take appropriate measures to unveil the truth as soon as possible," the spokesman said. Lebanese parliament member Ghattas Khoury, a member of Hariri's party, said he agreed with the report's conclusions. "I think the report is fair. It coincides with the view of the opposition that security agencies were completely negligent. ... up to the level of direct involvement or even probably conspiracy," he told CNN. "There is a need to have foreign international investigation ... to clear up the truth about who was behind the assassination," he added. Hariri was the chief opposition figure in Lebanon to push for the exit of Syrian troops and intelligence officers from his country following last year's passage of U.N. Resolution 1559, which called for a full withdrawal. Last week, Syria began moving its 14,000 troops to the Bekaa Valley near the border with Lebanon and promised to bring all the troops and intelligence officials across the border into Syria as soon as possible. According to the report, the specific causes for the assassination will not be known until after the killers are brought to justice. "However, it is clear that the assassination took place in a political and security context marked by an acute polarization around the Syrian influence in Lebanon and a failure of the Lebanese state to provide adequate protection for its citizens," investigators concluded. The report calls Lebanon's security services "negligent," and accuses them of contributing to the "propagation of a culture of intimidation and impunity." Protection must beefed up to boost the nation's security and credibility, it says. Source: CNN

Bomb Wrecks Kaslik Shopping Mall to Show Lebanon Still Needs Syrian Protection

A bomb blast ripped a shopping mall in an elite commercial thoroughfare at
the coastal township of Kaslik north of Beirut early Wednesday, killing two
Asian janitors and sharpening fears of escalating violence apparently
designed to show that Lebanon still cannot afford a total Syrian departure.
Police said the victims were an Indian and a Pakistani who had long worked
as janitors in Kaslik's Alta Vista Tower, where four others -two Sri Lankans
and two Lebanese-- were. One injured Lebanese was treated on the spot for
minor cuts from flying glass and sent home while the other three were
hospitalized with critical wounds.

It was the second such bombing attack in five days. The first occurred at
suburban New Jdeideh on Beirut's northern edge at the southern flank of the
Metn district early Saturday, injuring 11 people. Kaslik is in the Kesrouan
district some 10 kilometers north of New Jdeideh. Both districts are part of
Lebanon's Christian heartland.

Kesrouan parliament members blamed the Kaslik bombing on Syrian-controlled
Lebanese intelligence services, calling both the Kaslik and New Jdeideh
bombings systematic acts of terrorism.

Legislator Farid Khazen said the Kaslik attack was a response by the
commanders of Lebanon's major security branches to the opposition demand
that they all be fired for failing to prevent ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's
assassination Feb. 14.

"Such attacks will escalate correspondingly with the progress of the process
of Lebanon's restoration of its sovereignty and independence," said
Legislator Nihmatallah Abi Nasr in an obvious reference to the advancement
of Syria's ongoing exit from Lebanon.

source: Naharnet

Bush rejects any partial withdrawal by Syria

WESTFIELD, New Jersey (AP) -- President Bush on Friday flatly rejected any partial withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, saying he will not accept the kind of "half-measures" Damascus is expected to propose as a compromise.
"There are no half-measures at all," Bush said during an event here on his Social Security proposals.
"When the United States and France say withdraw, we mean complete withdrawal, no halfhearted measures," he said.
During a speech Saturday to his parliament, Syrian President Bashar Assad was expected to announce a troop pullback to eastern Lebanon near the Syrian border -- but not a full withdrawal, according to Syrian and Lebanese officials.
"We need to see action, not words," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said a day ahead of that speech.
A fellow Arab nation, Saudi Arabia, has also called on Syria to pull out. On Thursday, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah told Assad their relations will suffer if Syria doesn't start soon on a complete withdrawal, a Saudi official said.
Bush welcomed that new pressure, saying he was pleased to hear the same message from Saudi Arabia that has been pressed by a growing list of nations.
"Syria, Syrian troops, Syria's intelligence services, must get out of Lebanon now," the president said.
"The world is beginning to speak with one voice. We want that democracy in Lebanon to succeed, and we know it cannot succeed so long as she is occupied by a foreign power and that power is Syria," Bush said.
Bush told the New York Post in an interview published Friday that he wants Syria's longtime presence in Lebanon and influence on its political affairs ended by May.
McClellan said that deadline was pegged to the parliamentary elections planned for a new government in Lebanon.
"We want to make sure those are free and fair elections without outside interference," McClellan said.