4 Lebanese Army Soldiers Killed, Several Injured in Attack in East Lebanon
Four Lebanese soldiers were killed when their vehicle was raked with bullets and blasted with a grenade in an apparently drugs-related ambush Monday, a security official and the army said.
The attack occurred in the Bekaa Valley in the east of the country near the Syrian border that has long been known as a fertile drug-producing region.
"At 11:00 am (0800 GMT), an army vehicle was ambushed by armed men… Four soldiers were killed and an officer was injured," an army statement said.
Witnesses said the army jeep was ambushed in Reyak, about 20 kilometers south of the Bekaa”s main town of Baalbek, site of a majestic Roman temple complex.
They said a gang of men opened fire with machine-guns and a rocket-propelled grenade on the vehicle.
A security official who asked not to be identified said the soldiers were killed by an Energa-type grenade, fragments of which were found near the vehicle.
Increased military patrolling was reported along the Reyak-Baalbek road in the wake of the attack while the army set up roadblocks.
Helicopters were seen over the area as the army urged Bekaa residents to cooperate with the military and "not to give refuge to criminals."
President Michel Suleiman ordered army chief General Jean Qahwaji to "take the strongest possible action against the attackers, no matter what the cost."
In his first reaction to the incident, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud said his ministry will "strike back with an iron fist to prevent a repeat of Monday”s attacks" adding that the army was "a red line."
Both Prime Minister Fouad Saniora and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri condemned the incident.
Saniora said it underlined "the necessity to apply the rule of law to all citizens across the whole country," the National News Agency reported, and Berri in a statement called it an "attack on national security."
Hizbullah also expressed its "strong condemnation" of the attack and urged in a statement that action be taken against those responsible.
"Hizbullah demands the co-operation and the solidarity of residents of Bekaa with the army," it added.
On March 27, Lebanese troops killed a prominent drugs baron, Ali Abbas Jaafar, and an aide in a stolen car after they refused to stop at a checkpoint in the valley.
Relatives of the two men shot at an army vehicle later on the same day when their bodies were brought back to Baalbek. The army said three soldiers were lightly wounded.
As news of Monday”s ambush spread, friends and relatives of Jaafar in Baalbek fired celebratory gunshots into the air, an AFP correspondent said.
Jaafar, who had 172 arrest warrants against him, was wanted on a variety of charges, including drug trafficking, opening fire on military positions, attempted murder of soldiers and civilians and carrying false documents.
The army has often been targeted in deeply divided Lebanon, which has witnessed a spate of killings of prominent anti-Syrian figures in recent years.
Historically known as Lebanon”s breadbasket, the Bekaa was also synonymous with production of illegal drugs, chiefly hashish, during the 1975-1990 civil war.
Last September, four soldiers and three civilians were killed when an explosion ripped through a military bus in the northern port city of Tripoli. A similar attack in mid-August killed 14 people, including nine soldiers and a child.