The Resistance Deadlock and Tripoli Clashes Persist
As differences over Hizbullah”s resistance hampered efforts by a ministerial committee to draft a policy statement for the new cabinet, intermittent clashes persisted between pro and anti-Hizbullah factions in the northern town of Tripoli killing nine people, wounding 33 and displacing hundreds of families.
Despite a pledge by Interior Minister Ziad Baroud that security forces would "decisively" enforce a cease- fire, intermittent clashes persisted early in the day Saturday between the pro-Hizbullah district of Baal Mohsen and abutting pro-majority neighborhood Bab al-Tabbaneh and its environs.
President Michel Suleiman contacted defense and interior ministers, Elias Murr and Baroud, respectively, and acting army commander Gen. Shawqi Masri and instructed them to adopt "field measures leading to curbing the security deterioration and abiding by the cease fire," said a statement released by the presidential press office.
Baroud, who held a series of meetings with security officials in Tripoli overnight, pledged that security forces and army units would act decisively on Saturday to contain the deterioration and enforce respect of the cease-fire.
Meanwhile, the Mufti of Tripoli and north Lebanon Sheikh Malek al-Shaar, who had mediated a cease-fire that combatants did not respect, warned that the city is receiving "waves of displaced families" from the confrontation zone.
"It is raining shells on Bab al-Tabbaneh," The Mufti said.
"How can the army succeed in uprooting Shaker al-Abssi from Nahr al Bared and fail in controlling the hand of evil in Tripoli?" Mufti Shaar asked.
He pledged, "We wouldn”t remain silent. Using the city as a theater to exert pressure on the cabinet and the policy statement is not fair."
Meanwhile, Information Minister Tareq Mitri said the ministerial committee drafting a policy statement for the new cabinet was encountering "differences in viewpoints regarding the role of the state in resisting occupation and the role of the resistance."
He said the committee would persist with its efforts until Monday and asked those "who want to speed up the committee”s efforts to help us by promoting flexibility … so that controversial issues that we fail to reach agreement on would be referred to national dialogue that would be sponsored by the –president."
Suleiman, who had followed up the committee”s efforts through his representative cabinet minister Joe Taqla, was "dismayed by the unjustified delay" in drafting the cabinet”s policy statement, the daily an-Nahar quoted the president”s visitors as saying.
Such visitors also quoted the president as saying that the delay "reflects negatively on the field situation," in what appears to be a reference to the Tripoli clashes.
The president”s visitors spoke of three proposals under consideration to contain the differences over the role of Hizbullah”s resistance and its weapons:
Such proposals include referring the topic to national dialogue for tackling; linking any reference to the resistance to UNSCR 1701 as proposed by Premier Fouad Saniora; or adopting a phrase that president Suleiman had used in his oath address regarding the resistance.
Hizbullah, however, has rejected the three proposals and insisted that the policy statement should include clear adherence to the "resistance role" as outlined in the previous cabinet”s policy statement adopted in 2005.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri as well as MPs Walid Jumblat and Saad Hariri were involved in efforts to facilitate the ministerial committee”s effort to draft the policy statement.
Taqla, who visited Berri on Friday, was quoted as saying he hoped the policy statement would be adopted by Monday.
Picture: Boys disembark from a pickup after fleeing from their homes to a school in Tripoli, northern Lebanon July 25, 2008.
(Omar Ibrahim/Reuters)