Tag Archives: Lebanon

Hezbollah declares Syria victory: report

Hezbollah declares Syria victory: report

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian government’s powerful Lebanese ally Hezbollah has declared victory in the Syrian war, dismissing remaining fighting as “scattered battles”, a pro-Hezbollah newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The comments by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah mark one of the most confident assessments yet by the government side as it regains swathes of territory in eastern Syria in a rapid advance against Islamic State.

Referring to President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents, Nasrallah said “the path of the other project has failed and wants to negotiate for some gains”, the al-Akhbar newspaper cited him saying at a religious gathering.

“We have won in the war (in Syria)…and what remains are scattered battles,” said Nasrallah, whose Iran-backed group has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to support Assad.

A source familiar with the contents of Nasrallah’s speech confirmed al-Akhbar’s report.

Backed by Russia and Iran, Assad has crushed numerous pockets of rebel-held territory in the western Syrian cities of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus over the last year, and he appears militarily unassailable in the six-year-long conflict.

Ceasefires brokered by Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States in remaining rebel-held areas of western Syria have freed up manpower on the government side, helping its advance east into the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zor.

The eastward march to Deir al-Zor, unthinkable two years ago when Assad seemed in danger, has underlined his ever more confident position and the dilemma facing Western governments that still want him to leave power in a negotiated transition.

Government forces last week reached Deir al-Zor city, the provincial capital on the Euphrates River, breaking an Islamic State siege of a government-held enclave and a nearby air base.

In a televised speech last month, Assad said there were signs of victory in the war, but that the battle continued.

U.S.-backed militia fighting under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have in recent days launched a separate offensive against Islamic State in Deir al-Zor province.

The SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, is also waging a campaign to capture Raqqa city from Islamic State. It has avoided conflict with the Syrian government.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Lebanon finds soldiers’ bodies after retaking Islamic State-held area

A Lebanese Army soldier looks through binoculars in Ras Baalbek, Lebanon August 28, 2017. REUTERS/ Hassan Abdallah

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon has identified the bodies of six of its soldiers found along the Syrian border in an area held by Islamic State until three days ago, sources in the president’s office said.

The Lebanese army launched an offensive this month which ended with Islamic State militants leaving their last foothold along the border on Sunday.

Since then the army has found 10 bodies in the area. DNA tests confirmed that six of those belonged to Lebanese soldiers, the sources and local media reported on Wednesday.

Islamic State militants had for years held territory along the border, and captured 10 Lebanese soldiers in 2014 when they briefly overran the town of Arsal, one of the worst spillovers of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon.

The militants and their families left the border area on Sunday under a ceasefire deal.

The agreement included IS militants identifying where they had buried the soldiers’ bodies, Lebanese army chief General Joseph Aoun said on Wednesday.

“I had two choices: either I continue the battle and not know the soldiers’ fate, or I submit to the situation and find out. Their souls are my responsibility,” he told reporters.

It was not immediately clear if all six belonged to those captured in 2014, however – one of the bodies discovered is believed to belong to a soldier killed in the recent fighting.

Of the 10 captured in 2014, one was killed shortly after and footage of his execution was published by the militants.

Another is believed to have joined Islamic State. His whereabouts is unknown.

 

(Reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by John Davison and Raissa Kasolowsky)

 

Netanyahu: Iran building missile production sites in Syria, Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) gestures as he delivers a joint statement with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Jerusalem August 28,

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran is building sites to produce precision-guided missiles in Syria and Lebanon, with the aim of using them against Israel.

At the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Netanyahu accused Iran of turning Syria into a “base of military entrenchment as part of its declared goal to eradicate Israel.”

“It is also building sites to produce precision-guided missiles towards that end, in both Syria and in Lebanon. This is something Israel cannot accept. This is something the U.N. should not accept,” Netanyahu said.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him in Syria’s civil war.

There was no immediate comment from Iran.

Israel has pointed to Tehran’s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or Shi’ite Muslim proxies, especially Hezbollah.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu, in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Israel was prepared to act unilaterally to prevent an expanded Iranian military presence in Syria.

Russia, also an Assad ally, is seen as holding the balance of power in achieving a deal on Syria’s future. Israel fears an eventual Assad victory could leave Iran with a permanent garrison in Syria, extending a threat posed from neighboring Lebanon by Hezbollah.

Netanyahu accused Iran of building the production sites two weeks after an Israeli television report showed satellite images it said were of a facility Tehran was constructing in northwest Syria to manufacture long-range rockets.

The Channel 2 News report said the images were of a site near the Mediterranean coastal town of Baniyas and were taken by an Israeli satellite.

In parallel to lobbying Moscow, Israel has been trying to persuade Washington that Iran and its guerrilla partners, not Islamic State, pose the greater common threat in the region.

 

(Additional reporting and editing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

 

Islamic State begins to leave Syria-Lebanon border zone

Hezbollah fighter walk near a military tank in Western Qalamoun, Syria August 23, 2017.

By Angus McDowall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A convoy of Islamic State fighters and their families began to depart the Lebanon-Syria border zone on Monday under Syrian military escort, surrendering their enclave and leaving for eastern Syria after a week-long battle.

A line of ambulances and buses were shown on Syrian state television driving slowly through the arid countryside, the border’s pale hills behind them, as they departed.

It will end any Sunni militant presence on the border, an important goal for Lebanon and the Shi’ite Hezbollah group, and is the first time Islamic State has publicly agreed to a forced evacuation from territory it held in Syria.

Islamic State agreed a ceasefire on Sunday with the Lebanese army on one front and the Syrian army and Hezbollah on the other after losing much of its mountainous enclave straddling the border, paving the way for its evacuation.

Both Hezbollah and Lebanese officials have billed the evacuation as a surrender by the jihadist group.

“We do not bargain. We are in the position of the victor and are imposing conditions,” Lebanese Internal Security General Abbas Ibrahim said on Sunday.

Hezbollah, a Lebanese group, has been a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad through Syria’s six-year civil war. The Lebanese army said its offensive against Islamic State did not involve coordination with Hezbollah or the Syrian army.

A commander in the pro-Assad military alliance said Syria and Hezbollah had accepted Islamic State’s evacuation rather than a fight to the end to avert a bloody war of attrition.

Islamic State fighters were sheltering among civilians and to complete the offensive would have involved great bloodshed, the commander added. “Every battle that ends with negotiation or surrender is a victory,” the commander said.

 

HEAVY SECURITY

A total of 600 people, including both Islamic State fighters and their family members, will leave in the convoy, Syria’s state-run Ikhbariya television station reported.

The militants will travel across Syria under heavy security escort to Islamic State lines near Al-Bukamal in the east, a Lebanese security source said.

The Syrian army and Hezbollah were communicating with Islamic State near Al-Bukamal to arrange the transfer of the convoy into jihadist territory, the security source said.

One Hezbollah prisoner and the corpses of five Hezbollah fighters, as well as the bodies of some Syrian soldiers, will be handed over by Islamic State, the security source added.

Islamic State fighters were earlier seen burning heavy equipment and arms which the left in the border enclave.

The deal also involved Islamic State revealing the fate of nine Lebanese soldiers it captured when it overran the town of Arsal in Lebanon in 2014.

A senior Lebanese security official said late on Sunday the soldiers were almost certainly dead after recovering six bodies and digging for two others in areas previously held by Islamic State.

Earlier this month, two other pockets straddling the border were recaptured by Lebanon and Syria after other militant groups accepted similar evacuation deals.

Those agreements were prompted by a brief Hezbollah offensive that began at the end of July against militants of the group formerly known as Nusra Front, which was al Qaeda’s official partner in Syria until last year.

Hezbollah has maintained a strong presence in the parts of Syria near the border with Lebanon for years, helping Assad to recapture several rebel-held towns and villages there.

The threat to Lebanese territory from rebel and militant groups in Syria was evident in the 2014 attack on Arsal. Suicide bomb attacks struck a predominately Shi’ite area in south Beirut, where Hezbollah is widely supported, in November 2015.

Inside Syria, Islamic State is retreating on all fronts, losing territory both to the Syrian army and its allies, and to an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by a U.S.-led coalition.

 

 

(Additional reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Alison Williams)

 

Hezbollah steers Lebanon closer to Syria, straining efforts to stay neutral

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri holds a cabinet meeting at the governmental palace in Beirut, Lebanon August 9, 2017. Picture taken August 9, 2017. Dalati Nohra/Handout via REUTERS

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah and its allies are pressing the Lebanese state to normalize relations with President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, testing Lebanon’s policy of “dissociation” from the Syrian conflict and igniting a political row.

Calls for closer ties with the Syrian government, including on refugee returns and military operations on the Lebanon-Syria border, come as Assad regains control of more territory from insurgents and seeks to recover his international standing.

The Lebanese policy of “dissociation”, agreed in 2012, has aimed to keep the deeply divided state out of regional conflicts such as Syria even as Iran-backed Hezbollah became heavily involved there, sending fighters to help Assad, who is also allied to Iran.

The policy has helped rival groups to coexist in governments bringing together Hezbollah, classified as a terrorist group by the United States, with politicians allied to Iran’s foe Saudi Arabia, underpinning a degree of political entente amid the regional turmoil.

While Lebanon never severed diplomatic or trade ties with Syria, the government has avoided dealing with the Syrian government in an official capacity and the collapse of the policy would be a boost a political boost to Assad.

It would also underline Iran’s ascendancy in Lebanon, where the role of Saudi Arabia has diminished in recent years when it has focused on confronting Tehran in the Gulf instead.

Assad’s powerful Lebanese Shi’ite allies want the government to cooperate with Syria on issues such as the fight against jihadists at their shared border and securing the return of the 1.5 million Syrians currently taking refuge in Lebanon.

“Everybody recognizes (the dissociation policy) as a farce to some extent, but at least it contained the conflict and prevented Lebanon from being dragged even further into what is going on in Syria,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut.

“(A normalization of relations) would be viewed as a victory, if using sectarian terms, of Shi’ites versus the Sunnis and will just inflame tensions even more.”

ROAD TO DAMASCUS

Lebanon’s relationship with Syria has for decades set rival Lebanese against each other. Syria dominated its smaller neighbor from the end of its 1975-90 civil war until 2005.

A row erupted this week because of plans by government ministers from Hezbollah and the Shi’ite Amal party to visit Damascus next week.

Although the government has refused to sanction the visit as official business – citing the dissociation policy – Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan, a Hezbollah member, has insisted they will be in Damascus as government representatives.

“We will meet Syrian ministers in our ministerial capacity, we will hold talks over some economic issues in our ministerial capacity, and we will return in our ministerial capacity to follow up on these matters,” Hassan told al-Manar TV.

Samir Geagea, a leading Lebanese Christian politician and longstanding opponent of Hezbollah and Syrian influence in Lebanon, has said the visit to Syria will “shake Lebanon’s political stability and put Lebanon in the Iranian camp”.

A senior Lebanese official allied to Damascus described the row as “part of the political struggle in the region”.

The influence of Iran’s allies in Lebanon was shown last year by the selection of a longtime ally of Hezbollah, Christian politician Michel Aoun, as head of state in a political deal that also installed Saudi-allied Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri.

SYRIAN RETURNS

Hezbollah has recently stepped up calls for the Lebanese government to engage directly with Damascus over the return of Syrian refugees, who now account for one in four of the people in Lebanon and are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.

The issue is of enormous political sensitivity in Lebanon, although all politicians agree they must return to Syria due to strains on Lebanon’s resources and risks to its sectarian balance.

Hariri has said Lebanon will only coordinate refugee returns with the United Nations, which says there can be no forced return of people who fled the conflict, many of whom fear returning to a Syria governed by Assad.

But one branch of the Lebanese state, the powerful internal security agency General Security, recently held talks with the Syrian authorities to secure the return of several thousand Syrians into Syria following a military campaign by Hezbollah in the northeast border region.

General Security says the refugee returns have been voluntary. The United Nations has had no role in the talks.

An expected Lebanese army assault on Islamic State militants at the border with Syria has been another focal point for the debate over cooperation with Damascus. The army, a recipient of U.S. aid, has said it will lead the battle alone in Lebanese territory, and does not need to coordinate with other parties.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said his group and the Syrian army will mount a simultaneous assault against IS from the Syrian side of the frontier, however.

“Practically speaking, the dissociation policy is finished,” said Nabil Boumonsef, a columnist with the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar.

But he warned of the political ramifications in Lebanon, saying “political score settling” by one party against another would create “a big problem” in the country.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Additional reporting by Laila Bassam; Editing by Tom Perry and Sonya Hepinstall)

Hezbollah, Syria army launch offensive at Syrian-Lebanese border

Lebanese army soldiers patrol a street in Labwe, at the entrance of the border town of Arsal, in eastern Bekaa Valley, Lebanon July 21, 2017. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

By Laila Bassam and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Syrian army launched an offensive to drive insurgents from their last foothold on the Syrian-Lebanese border on Friday, a pro-Damascus military commander said.

The operation targeted insurgents from the Nusra Front group in the mountainous outskirts of the Lebanese town of Arsal and areas near the Syrian town of Fleita, the commander said.

Media run by Hezbollah reported significant gains by its side in the early stage of the operation.

A Lebanese security source said refugees living in the area were fleeing toward Arsal and the Lebanese army was facilitating their passage with U.N. supervision.

U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) spokeswoman Lisa Abou Khaled said only a small number of people had fled to Arsal town so far.

“UNHCR has only received confirmation … that two Syrian families have arrived in the town of Arsal from the outskirts,” she said.

Several thousand Syrian refugees occupy camps east of the town in an area known as Juroud Arsal, a barren mountainous zone between Syria and Lebanon that has served as a base for Islamic State militants, jihadists and other rebels fighting in Syria’s six year civil war.

Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV said Nusra militants were under attack in Juroud Arsal and in areas near the Syrian town of Fleita. A military news outlet run by Hezbollah reported Syrian army air strikes on Nusra positions near Fleita.

Al-Manar broadcast footage showing an artillery gun being fired from the back of a truck flying the Hezbollah flag. Plumes of smoke were shown rising from the hills.

Hezbollah, a Shi’ite group backed by Iran, has played a critical part in previous campaigns against insurgents along the border, part of the much wider role it has played supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war.

The Lebanese army is not taking part in the operation, the commander in the pro-Damascus military alliance and the Lebanese security source said. The Lebanese source said the army had assumed a defensive position, was monitoring militant movements, and would fire if it came under attack.

The Lebanese National News Agency later reported that the army had fired on a group of militants trying to flee the fighting toward Arsal town.

ARMY REINFORCEMENTS

The Lebanese army, a recipient of U.S. and British military support, deployed reinforcements on the outskirts of Arsal in anticipation of the operation this week to prevent militants from crossing into Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian war has been a major point of contention in Lebanon, facing criticism from opponents including Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. Hariri’s Future Movement on Thursday said the anticipated Arsal battle was part of “the services” offered by Hezbollah to “the Syrian regime”.

Hariri said on Tuesday the Lebanese army would carry out a carefully planned operation in the Juroud Arsal area, but there was no coordination between it and the Syrian army.

The Nusra Front was al Qaeda’s official affiliate in the Syrian civil war until last year when it formally severed ties to al Qaeda and renamed itself. The group now spearheads the Tahrir al-Sham Islamist alliance.

In 2014, Arsal was the scene of one of the most serious spillovers of the Syrian war into Lebanon, when jihadists briefly overran the town.

Negotiations failed to secure the militants’ withdrawal from the Juroud Arsal area to other rebel-held parts of Syria.

Earlier this month, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said time was running out for Syrian militants along the border near Arsal to reach deals with Syrian authorities, saying it was “high time to end the threat of militant groups in Arsal”.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam/Tom Perry; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Jon Boyle and Hugh Lawson)

Lebanese PM says army to carry out operation at Syrian border

FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri arrives with Army Commander General Joseph Aoun (L) at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in Naqoura, near the Lebanese-Israeli border, southern Lebanon April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho/File Photo

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Tuesday the army would carry out an operation in an area of the border with Syria that has been a base of operations for militants including jihadist groups.

Speaking in parliament, Hariri described the operation planned for the Juroud Arsal area as carefully studied, the National News Agency reported. The government had given the army the “freedom” to act, he added.

Juroud Arsal, a barren area in the mountains between Syria and Lebanon, has been a base of operations for insurgents fighting in the Syrian civil war, including jihadists from Islamic State and the group formerly known as the Nusra Front.

Speculation has been building that the powerful Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Syrian military are set to mount a major operation against the insurgents on the Syrian side of the frontier.

Earlier this month, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said time was running out for Syrian militants along the border near Arsal to reach deals with Syrian authorities, saying it was “high time to end the threat of militant groups in Arsal”.

Hariri however said “there is no coordination between the Lebanese and Syrian armies”.

A security source said the Lebanese army, a recipient of U.S. and British military aid, had increased its deployment in the Arsal area in the last 24 hours.

The source said the militants in the Juroud Arsal area were estimated to number around 3,000, two-thirds of them belonging to Islamic State or the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, and the remainder members of other rebel groups.

In 2014, the Arsal area was the scene of one of the most serious spillovers of the Syrian war into Lebanon, when jihadists briefly overran the town of Arsal.

The Iran-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah has provided Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with crucial military support in the war, a role that has drawn heavy criticism from its Lebanese opponents including Hariri.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Refugees return to Syria from Lebanon in Hezbollah-mediated deal

Syrian Refugees seen at Lebanon's border region of Arsal, Lebanon July 12, 2017. REUTERS/Hassan Abdallah

By Hassan Abdullah

ARSAL, Lebanon (Reuters) – A convoy of refugees began leaving the Lebanese border region for Syria on Wednesday, a security source said, the second group to return under an agreement brokered by the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah.

The Lebanese army escorted around 250 people out of the border town of Arsal. The refugees headed for the Syrian town of Asal al-Ward across the border, northeast of Damascus.

A military media unit run by Damascus ally Hezbollah said the buses carried 60 families. An estimated 60,000 refugees are in Arsal.

It was the second batch of people to leave for their hometown across the border Arsal under the agreement, which Hezbollah arranged in indirect talks with the Syrian rebel group Saraya Ahl al-Sham, said an official in the alliance fighting in support of the Damascus government.

Hezbollah also coordinated with the Lebanese military and with the Syrian government separately, securing crossings for refugees who want to leave, the official said.

Several refugees told a Reuters photographer before a checkpoint manned by Hezbollah fighters they were eager to go back to their hometown after several years in squalid, makeshift camps in the border town of Arsal.

“It’s been three years and we haven’t seen our families and relatives, said Abeer Mahmoud al Haj, in a van with her family members around her. “May God return everyone to his country, there is no better than Syria,”

Since early in the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, along with Iran and Russia, sending thousands of men to fight the mostly Sunni Syrian rebels.

The U.N. refugee body said it was not involved in the deal. A spokeswoman said it was not encouraging large-scale return of refugees to a country where conflict is still raging.

“The UNHCR is not at a stage where it’s promoting return because the conditions are not conducive,” Dana Sleiman said.

Two refugees in Arsal who refused to give their names said many in the camps were unwilling to return because of fears their young men would be drafted into the army. Many had also lost their livelihoods and their villages had been ransacked.

“RECONCILIATION DEALS”

More than 1 million registered Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon, now making up a quarter of its population, the United Nations refugee agency says. The number is widely put at closer to 1.5 million.

They are scattered across Lebanon, mostly in makeshift camps and often in severe poverty, and face the risk of arrest because of restrictions on legal residence and work.

The group of refugees returned on Wednesday as part of a local deal, not a broader agreement. Politicians are deeply divided over whether Lebanon should work directly with the Syrian government over the return of refugees, which Hezbollah and its allies advocate.

Others, including Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, are strongly opposed, questioning the safety of the refugees once they return. Hariri has called for secure areas to be set up on the Syrian side of the border to which refugees could voluntarily return under United Nations supervision.

In a televised speech on Tuesday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that time was running out for Syrian militants along the border near Arsal to reach deals with Syrian authorities.

“It’s high time to end the threat of militant groups in Arsal and little time is left to reach certain reconciliation deals,” Nasrallah said. “There are terrorists and planners of attacks in Arsal and this needs a solution.”

Nasrallah praised the security campaign the Lebanese army has been waging in recent weeks against suspected militants.

The Lebanese army says it regularly stages operations in the hills near the northeastern border against Islamic State and militants formerly linked to al Qaeda.

In late June, authorities arrested several hundred people in raids on Syrian refugee camps in Arsal. A Lebanese military prosecutor has ordered forensic examinations on the bodies of four of them who died in army custody, after rights groups called for an investigation.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam and Suleiman al Khalidi in Beirut; writing by Ellen Francis; editing by Andrew Roche)

Israel would go ‘all-out’ if war breaks out again with Lebanon: air force chief

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) speaks with Amir Eshel, commander of the Israeli Air Force, as they stand next to a David's Sling launcher system during a ceremony in which Israel declared its "David's Sling" intermediate-range air defence shield fully operational, at Hatzor air base in southern Israel April 2, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel would use all its strength from the start in any new war with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the chief of the Israeli air force said on Wednesday, sending a firm warning a decade after their last conflict.

At the annual Herzliya security conference near Tel Aviv, Major-General Amir Eshel said qualitative and quantitative improvements in the air force since the 2006 Lebanon war meant it could carry out in just two or three days the same number of bombings it mounted in those 34 days of fighting.

“If war breaks out in the north, we have to open with all our strength from the start,” he said, pointing to the likelihood of international pressure for a quick ceasefire before Israel can achieve all its strategic goals.

Israeli politicians and generals have spoken often of an intention to hit hard in Lebanon if war breaks out, in an apparent bid to deter Hezbollah. Eshel said in 2014 that another conflict could see Israeli attacks 15 times more devastating for Lebanon than in 2006.

But at the conference, Eshel noted that “many elements busy achieving their goals” in Syria’s civil war were interested in preventing any fresh hostilities in Lebanon, where Israel says Hezbollah has built up an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets.

Since early in the six-year-old Syria war, Hezbollah’s energies have been focused on propping up President Bashar al-Assad in alliance with Iran and Russia, throwing thousands of its fighters into battle against Syrian rebels.

But the Shi’ite group has not altered its view of Israel as its foremost enemy, and Israel’s military has said it regards Hezbollah in the same way.

CROWDED SKIES

Although Israel has kept to the sidelines of the war in Syria, Israeli aircraft have targeted suspected Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah, operations complicated by Russian and U.S. air activity in the region.

“The skies of the Middle East are a lot more crowded than before, with lots of players,” Eshel said, pointing to the need for the air force to operate “surgically” to avoid “mistakes”.

On the other hand, such strikes, he said, also act as a deterrent to Hezbollah, whose missile capabilities could mean that the air force and the rest of the Israeli military will fight any future Lebanon war with their own bases under attack.

Eshel cautioned residents in southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, to leave their homes if a new conflict erupts, saying the Iranian-backed group uses civilian homes as “launching bases for missiles and rockets”

About 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them troops fighting Hezbollah, were killed in the 2006 war, which displaced a million people in Lebanon and up to 500,000 in Israel.

(Editing by Luke Baker and Andrew Heavens)

As U.S. targets Hezbollah, Lebanon lobbies against more sanctions

A general view shows a street hosting banks and financial institutions, known as Banks street, in Beirut Central District, Lebanon June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Moves in Washington to widen financial sanctions on the powerful Shi’ite Hezbollah political group have triggered alarm in Beirut where the government fears major damage to the banking sector that underpins Lebanon’s stability.

Not yet proposed as law, draft amendments to an existing law threatening sanctions against anyone who finances the heavily-armed Iranian-backed Hezbollah in a significant way prompted lobbying trips to Washington in May by worried Lebanese bankers and politicians.

They returned saying that U.S. officials recognized their concerns over draft proposals that would widen the scope of the law by subjecting Hezbollah’s political allies to sanctions or scrutiny, and believing any expansion of the law would be a toned down version of the draft.

But with U.S. President Donald Trump keen to curb the influence of Iran and its Middle Eastern allies in the region, the risks have not gone away for Lebanon, where Hezbollah wields huge influence.

“There’s one question anyone who wants to put pressure on Lebanon should remember: Do you want another failed state on the eastern Mediterranean?” Yassine Jaber, a member of parliament who led a delegation to Washington in mid-May, told Reuters.

“Lebanon is very, very vulnerable economically at the moment,” added Jaber, an independent Shi’ite politician who is aligned with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s Shi’ite Amal movement, which was named as a target for investigation in the draft amendments first reported by Lebanese media in April.

Political and financial figures fear more regulatory pressure could damage the banking sector – the cornerstone of Lebanon’s precarious economy – endangering a financial stability maintained despite the war in neighboring Syria where Hezbollah along with Iran backs President Bashar al-Assad.

Hezbollah, led by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was formed to combat Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of Lebanon. Its battlefield prowess, extensive social works among Lebanese Shi’ites and its alliance with powerful regional states have helped it secure a dominant role in the country’s politics with seats in parliament and government. It is classified by Washington as a terrorist organization.

MAIN WORRY CORRESPONDENT BANKS

The main worry is that U.S. correspondent banks – which face huge fines if found to be dealing with people or companies sanctioned under anti-terrorism financing legislation – might finally decide Lebanese banks are too risky to do business with.

That would threaten the remittances upon which the highly dollarized Lebanese economy depends. Shortly after the Lebanese press published the draft, President Michel Aoun – a Maronite Christian and political ally of Hezbollah – said as it stands it could cause “great damage to Lebanon and its people”.

The draft proposal would widen legislation to include persons and entities affiliated with Hezbollah, and to report on the finances of senior members of Amal. The wording gave rise to speculation in Lebanon that Aoun’s finances could be also targeted for scrutiny.

Jaber told Reuters the draft – a copy of which was seen by Reuters – was now “outdated”.

But sources familiar with the matter told Reuters there remains a strong desire in Washington to press harder against Iran and Hezbollah, and there are likely other measures being drafted.

A U.S. congressional aide told Reuters that Republican representative and head of the U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce, who authored the original 2015 law, is considering additional legislation.

“If they (the banks) aren’t doing business with Hezbollah, they don’t have anything to worry about,” the aide said.

The U.S. Treasury declined to comment on the draft saying it had no formal position.

Jaber said: “The position at the moment is that there might be some congressmen or senators thinking of preparing a bill, but I think our discussions will help in toning it down from what we saw as a draft.”

The United States says Hezbollah is financed not just by Iran but also by networks of Lebanese and international individuals and businesses. The 2015 law, known as HIFPA, aimed to cut off these funding routes.

TRIGGERED TENSIONS

Its implementation triggered domestic tensions in Lebanon. Worried about losing their relationship with correspondent banks, Lebanese banks began closing some customers’ accounts, including Shi’ites who were not Hezbollah members.

Critics of the law in Lebanon say it resulted in the unfair targeting of the Shi’ite population. Charity networks run by Shi’ite clerics were hit when some of their accounts closed for a time.

The law led to an unprecedented dispute between Hezbollah and the central bank which asked all banks to comply with the legislation. Last June, a bomb was set off at the headquarters of leading Lebanese bank Blom Bank, causing no casualties.

Since taking office in January, Trump has imposed new sanctions on individuals and businesses involved with Iran’s ballistic missile program and with Hezbollah.

Ali Hamdan, an Amal member who went on the lobbying trip to Washington, echoed Jaber, saying the leaked draft was outdated and could be forgotten. “An understanding was reached,” said Hamdan, media adviser to Berri. “[We] told them: more, wider, generalized sanctions are a recipe to destroy Lebanon.”

The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) dispatched its own delegation in May and met with a “good response” in Washington and from U.S. correspondent banks in New York.

ABL head Joseph Torbey made the case that existing legislation was sufficient and that the new draft was open to “inappropriate interpretations”.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Millership)