By
Rakan al-Fakih
ARSAL,
Lebanon: Syrian forces briefly detained a Lebanese man after crossing into the
border town of Arsal Wednesday, in the latest of a series of Syrian incursions
targeting the town and other border areas since the outbreak of unrest in
neighboring Syria 15 months ago.
Syrian
forces entered Arsal’s environs early Wednesday and snatched 40-year-old
Mohammad Khaled Hujeiri, forcing him off of his tractor.
“A
Syrian force infiltrated 2 kilometers into Lebanese territory and opened fire
at Mohammad Hujeiri. We are not sure what happened after that,” Ali Hujeiri,
the mayor of the town, told The Daily Star.
He
said the same Syrian force torched his farmhouse, which had been vacated over
the crisis in neighboring Syria, before it pulled out of the area.
The
mayor said the Lebanese Army was patrolling the area which witnessed the incursion
and erected fixed checkpoints in the area of Khirbet Daoud in upper Arsal, the
scene of a number of infiltrations by the Syrian army.
Following
contacts between the Lebanese Army and Syrian authorities, Hujeiri was handed
hours later to the Lebanese troops, who returned him to his family.
Residents
of Arsal are supportive of the ongoing uprising against Syria’s President
Bashar Assad which broke out in March 2011, and have hosted dozens of refugees
from the conflict.
The
opposition March 14 coalition held the government responsible for the Syrian
incursion, the abduction and the torching of the mayor’s farmhouse.
“This
deliberate attack is [one in a series] by the Syrian regime, which has been
violating our sovereign territory in the east and north ... in the complete
absence of the Lebanese government, which disassociates itself from protecting
unarmed Lebanese and clearly allows those who ensure its survival to intervene
in the Syrian crisis,” the March 14 General Secratariat said.
March
14 said the Future Movement-led coalition would coordinate a response to Syrian
violations through democratic means.
Last
week, a Lebanese was killed and two wounded after Syrian troops crossed into
Arsal. The incursion was followed by armed clashes between Lebanese gunmen and
Syrian troops.
Separately,
a Lebanese Army source dismissed reports that Syrian troops advanced 300 meters
inside Lebanese territory and planted land mines in the northeastern Bekaa area
of Masharih al-Qaa Wednesday. “This information is untrue,” the source told The
Daily Star.
Members
of the Radi family in Masharih al-Qaa said that Syrian troops advanced 300
meters inside Lebanon and searched their houses, which they evacuated months
ago after coming regularly under Syrian army gunfire.
They
added that the Syrian troops had carried out some excavations around their
houses, where they might have planted anti-personnel mines after remaining in
the area for around 30 minutes.
The incident comes two days
after the leaders from the Hezbollah-led March 8 bloc and the opposition March
14 coalition agreed during a National Dialogue session hosted by President
Michel Sleiman on the need to control the increasingly tense Lebanese-Syrian
border and rejected the idea of a buffer zone between the two countries.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Jun-14/176796-syrian-forces-kidnap-farmer-in-arsal-torch-mayors-farmhouse.ashx#axzz1xnReWakn
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