Border fighting after Mehlis rejects Syria offer

Israeli troops killed at least three Hizbullah gunmen on Monday during clashes near the Lebanese border in which one Israeli was also killed, Israeli and Lebanese security sources said.  "Three or four" guerrillas died after storming the border village of Ghajar, exchanging fire with the Israeli garrison there, according to Israeli security sources.
Earlier, the Israeli rescue service ZAKA said Israeli troops had killed four gunmen. An Israeli was also killed during the clash, ZAKA added.
A Hizbullah official confirmed that the fighters in the south had fired mortars and rockets at Israeli troops in the disputed border area. Israeli forces retaliated by bombing several areas on the Lebanese side of the border while the fighters fired salvoes of mortars and rockets, witnesses said, adding they counted more than 250 explosions in the area.
The witnesses said an Israeli military post in the Abbassiyeh area on the edge of the Shebaa Farms border area was set ablaze after fighters firing rockets, mortars and machine guns attacked a string of positions.
A Hizbullah source said three Israeli military vehicles at the post were on fire.
Scores of Hizbullah fighters were seen in several villages and towns during the fighting.
Witnesses added that at 4.01 pm Israeli helicopters sprayed the Shebaa-Kfar Shouba villages with heavy shelling, as well as firing shots into the Al-Mari valley outside the town of Ain Arab.
Israeli jets fired missiles on three suspected Hizbullah positions, one on the outskirts of Ghajar and two some distance away - south of the village of Khiam, and southeast of the port city of Tyre.
Lebanese police said fierce exchanges that erupted around 3pm continued to rage on as The Daily Star went to press.
The clashes come on the eve of Lebanon's Independence Day and as tension kicked up against Syria in the matter of its cooperation with the UN probe team into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.
Chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis on Monday rejected a proposal from Damascus to use offices in the Golan Heights to question Syrian officials about their role in the murder, Lebanese sources said.
With the clock ticking for Syria to fully cooperate with the inquiry or face further action, Mehlis and Syria were contemplating conducting the interviews in a "neutral country", the political sources said.
"Mehlis no longer insists on Lebanon as a venue but he has turned down the idea of the
Golan," one political source said. "Ideas are floating around over a neutral country, like Germany, Switzerland or Cyprus, but there is no agreement yet."
The political source said the investigators, who asked Lebanese President Emile Lahoud more than 200 questions during their last meeting , might request another meeting with the president soon.
Syria's UN ambassador sharply criticized Mehlis, saying that his insistence on holding the questioning of six Syrian officials in Beirut was a "provocation for those officials and would stir sensitivities" between Syrians and Lebanese.
In an interview with the London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Faysal Mekdad's remarks suggested Syria was not about to back down in its deadlock with Mehlis' request. Mekdad said: "The main obstacle facing the investigation is not an investigation location. The main obstacle is the extent of credibility of the investigation." 
Speaking to The Daily Star in New York, Mekdad's advisor said the Syrians had yet to receive Mehlis' rejection of the Golan Heights proposal.
Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora Monday took a hardline stance against Damascus, saying Syria has to learn to treat Lebanon as an independent state. "The Syrians must get used to dealing with Lebanon as an independent state, which does no harm to Syria," he said.
"The Lebanese must also be persuaded that they live in an independent country which is free to take its own decisions," said Siniora.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had sent a congratulatory message to Lahoud for the 62nd anniversary of Lebanon's independence, Syria's state news agency SANA reported.
The message underlined "Syria's commitment to brotherly relations between the two countries in keeping with the wishes of the people of Syria and Lebanon and their long historical and cultural links".
Siniora also Monday received a message from Syrian Prime Minister Naji Otari on the unresolved border issues, a Lebanese official said, without giving details. Earlier, leading opposition member MP Walid Jumblatt had accused the Syrian regime of "subverting Leb-anon's civil peace."
In an interview published by Al Mustaqbal newspaper, Jumblatt also said he had full trust in Mehlis, effectively rejecting Hizbullah's outcries that the German prosecutor "is not a God."
Jumblatt added: "Lebanon shall not be used as venue to derail the Hariri investigation at a time the Assad regime is making an assortment of concessions to avoid getting the accused Syrian officers behind bars. Lebanon shall not accept being rolled 30 years backward to civil warfare."
Taking an apparent jab at Hizbullah, Jumblatt said "arms do not provide protection for anyone. Protection is provided only by dialogue with the resistance and by national consensus backing this protection."
Jumblatt said Lebanon's border with Syria has to be defined and Syria must be formally asked to confirm that the Shebaa farms are Lebanese. "Once the Shebaa farms are regained and prisoners are returned from Israeli jails, then the 1949 armistice agreement should govern affairs between Lebanon and Israel." - Agencies, Naharnet

UN Interrogators Make Another Foray into Baabda to Question President's Son as Lahoud Held Secret Meeting with Aoun

The U.N. commission was reported Sunday to have made a second foray into the Baabda Palace in as many days to question this time President Lahoud's son, Emile Jr., about telephone calls made to his mobile from Rafik Hariri's assassination scene just before and just after the deadly bombing attack. Although the presidential palace denied the second investigation sortie on Saturday, An Nahar said U.N. investigators were at the Palace to "question the President's son not the President." The reported new move by the investigation commission, which is headed by the German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, came a day after international investigators held a six hour questioning session with President Lahoud himself in connection with the phone calls from Hariri's death scene Feb. 14. Despite efforts by the Palace to play down the significance of the presidential interrogation, the local media said six hours of cross-examination were enough to bring Lahoud once again under the glare, especially because the Presidential Guard commander General Mustafa Hamdan has long been in custody as a suspect in Hariri's murder. In another development, An Nahar said Sunday President Lahoud met secretly with Gen. Aoun at the President's family house in Bayada over the previous weekend. An Nahar said Aoun insisted on the secrecy shroud for the meeting, saying he had to cancel the scheduled face-to-face conference with the President at Bayada ten days ago because the meeting was leaked to the media beforehand. There was no word in An Nahar's report about what was discussed in the actual meeting of the two leaders. Lahoud is in desperate need of Aoun's backing to face widespread demands for his resignation because of the shadows of the Hariri assassination.

Beirut, Updated 14 Nov 05, 12:14

US State Dept. speaker on Assad's Speech

...

 

QUESTION: Okay. Do you have any comment on the speech of President Asad and his answer to the accusations on the Hariri murder?

MR. ERELI: Well, we saw the speech. We think it is appalling. Let's remember, first of all, that the international community has made it clear to Syria that it must, first, fully cooperate with the Mehlis investigation. And second, cease all interference in Lebanese domestic affairs. That's the clear and unmistakable message of three UN Security Council resolutions: 1559, 1565 and 1636. Asad's remarks today can only be seen as a defiance of those resolutions.

As the Secretary said, it doesn't constitute cooperation by any stretch of the imagination. And I think it is something that is just outrageous and appalling that he would threaten Lebanon like that, especially in light of the three Security Council resolutions and it shows that the regime of President al-Asad just doesn't get it and doesn't understand where the rest of the international community is on this very important issue.

Yes.

QUESTION: What is it that you perceive or where is it that you perceive him threatening Lebanon?

MR. ERELI: Well, I would refer you to the speech where he says that Lebanon is a platform and a factory for conspiracies, where he insults the Prime Minister of Lebanon. These are not the remarks of a country and a neighbor that is respectful of Lebanon and Lebanon's sovereignty and Lebanon's independence.

QUESTION: It's a pretty long way, isn't it, from not being respectful towards a country to actually threatening them? I mean, a threat normally involves -- if you don't do this or -- and we're going to do that. It's something along those lines rather than, wow, that's a really bad place with lots of conspiracies and we don't like the Prime Minister --

MR. ERELI: Let me put it this way. The remarks of President al-Asad are clearly inconsistent with the substance and import of three UN Security Council resolutions.

QUESTION: Could I try something else if we're --

QUESTION: Would you (inaudible) on the threat with (inaudible) --

MR. ERELI: I've said what I'm going to say.

QUESTION: No, well, hold on, so -- hold on. Are you -- you can't stop me asking a question when I'm just trying to elaborate your own word. I wonder if your second answer means you're now trying -- you know, you want to -- you could move away from that word or it is that you do perceive that he is saying, we will do something bad against Lebanon?

MR. ERELI: I will say this. The remarks that -- President Asad s speech -- that he made in his speech, and its implied approval of interference in Lebanese affairs, is not consistent with three UN Security Council resolutions that have all demanded that Syria refrain from interfering in Lebanon s affairs and have ordered Syria to respect Lebanese sovereignty. And that's not what we heard in the speech and that should be of concern to all of us.

...

Assad Lashes out at UN Criticism, Calls Saniora 'Helpless Slave.'

President Assad took a defiant stance toward the United Nations in connection with the Hariri assassination probe on Thursday, labeling chief investigator Detlev Mehlis as "intransigently biased" against Syria and calling Premier Saniora a "helpless slave of an obedient slave master."
Assad's own intransigence came in an address to the nation he made from a podium of the Damascus University auditorium in which he vowed anew that his regime was innocent of the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanon's 5-time Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
But the slanderous language he used against Saniora was seen as a rejection of U.N. chief Kofi Annan's advice to cooperate unconditionally with the Mehlis commission and to keep Syria's hands off Lebanon in order to avert U.S. military action.
"We will play their game" and cooperate -- for now -- but warned such cooperation could stop if Syria is going to be harmed.
Assad also disclosed that the U.N. investigator in the case has rejected the conditions that Syria set for cooperating with the investigation. That could set up a conflict with the United Nations and U.S., which have strongly pressured Syria to cooperate fully.
Assad said the latest events confirm that "no matter what we did and how much we cooperate, the result will be that Syria did not cooperate."
"Syria is innocent in the absolute sense," Assad said in his 90-minute speech about Syria's stance toward Hariri's murder. "Syria is not involved at the government level or at the individual level. The problem is merely a political one in the context of events."
Assad's defiance confirms media reports that he is on a collision course with Mehlis and perhaps the U.N. Security Council.
Clearly opting for confrontation with the international community, Assad Said "President Bashar will not be the president who will bow to anyone in this world. We bow only to almighty God,"

Aoun Says Lahoud will Resign Only 'If I am the Next President'

President Lahoud has sent word that he would resign the presidency only if he is assured that Gen. Aoun would be the next president, Aoun said in an interview aired by the BBC from Beirut.
Aoun was quoted as attributing Lahoud's stance to "his faith in my fairness, because if there is nothing against the president of the republic there won't be a future lawsuit against him."

The wording of Gen. Aoun's reported remark suggests he would be willing to give Lahoud a presidential pardon to shield him from future prosecution in connection with ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination.

Aoun was asked about the rejection of the majority in parliament of him as Lebanon's 12th post independence president. "If the parliamentary majority is capable of deciding without Michel Aoun, let them forge ahead," the General responded.

"If the majority won't vote for me, I won't vote for their candidate, unless the issue is treated by veto power. But basically I don't see that there is a presidential battle at present and I am not in hurry for the president's departure," Aoun added.

The General rallied behind the recent decision of the Maronite Church that the ongoing campaign to dethrone Lahoud should stop, contending that the constitution should judge whether Lahoud should be removed or allowed to complete the two years remaining from his extended term.

Commenting on his recent meeting with Lahoud that was cancelled at the last minute, Aoun said the president "wanted to tell me something…I am not going to reveal."

Security Council unanimously calls on Syria to detain suspects in Hariri murder

31 October 2005 - The United Nation Security Council today unanimously
called on Syria to detain Syrian suspects identified by an independent probe
into the terrorist assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri and clarify all unresolved issues, holding out the possibility of
"further action" in the case of non-compliance.
At a special ministerial-level session, the 15-member body adopted a
resolution endorsing the findings of the UN International Independent
Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) into the assassination. Resolution 1636
took note "with extreme concern" of the UNIIIC's conclusion that "while the
Syrian authorities have cooperated in form but not substance with the
Commission, several Syrian officials tried to mislead the Commission by
giving false or inaccurate information."
The resolution called on all States to prevent the entry or transit of
suspects designated by the Commission or the Government of Lebanon and to
freeze all assets of such person on their territory. It took this action to
assist the investigation and "without prejudice to the ultimate judicial
determination of guilt or innocence of any individual."
The measures will stay in place until "all the investigative and judicial
proceedings relating to this terrorist attack have been completed" unless
the Council decides otherwise. The Council also set up a committee to
register the individuals concerned, remove anyone who is deemed to be no
longer a suspect, and approve exceptions such as travel for religious or
humanitarian purposes.
"Syria's continued lack of cooperation to the inquiry would constitute a
serious violation of its obligations under relevant resolutions," the
Council said, insisting that Syria "not interfere in Lebanese domestic
affairs, either directly or indirectly, refrain from any attempt aimed at
destabilizing Lebanon, and respect scrupulously the sovereignty, territorial
integrity, unity and political independence of this country."
The Council requested UNIIIC to report back on the progress of its inquiry,
including Syria's cooperation by 15 December or earlier if it deems that
such cooperation does not meet the resolution's requirements, "so that the
Council, if necessary, could consider further action."
The resolution determined "that any involvement of any State in this
terrorist act would constitute a serious violation by that State of its
obligations to work to prevent and refrain from supporting terrorism."
The Council resolved that Syria must detain "those Syrian officials or
individuals whom the Commission considers as suspected of involvement in the
planning, sponsoring, organizing or perpetrating of this terrorist act, and
make them fully available to the Commission."
"The Commission shall have the authority to determine the location and
modalities for interview of Syrian officials and it deems relevant to the
inquiry," it declared.
In an interim report earlier this month the Commission, headed by German
prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, determined that "converging evidence" pointed at
both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in the 14 February assassination of Mr.
Hariri, in which 22 other people also died.
The Council endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's extension of the
Commission's mandate until 15 December and decided to extend it further if
so recommended by the Commission and requested by the Lebanese Government.
The assassination led to renewed calls for the withdrawal of all Syrian
troops and intelligence agents who had been in Lebanon since the early
stages of the country's 1975-1990 civil war, and the UN reported that Syrian
troops were withdrawn in April.