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Israeli missiles target militia

Warplanes attack Palestinian guerrilla group deep inside Lebanon in retaliation for assault on town

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | STAFF WRITER

December 29, 2005

NAAMEH, Lebanon - Israeli warplanes attacked a Palestinian militia base outside Beirut yesterday, marking the deepest Israeli strike inside Lebanon in 18 months.

In retaliation for rocket fire on a northern Israeli town, Israeli officials said they had targeted a base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small Syrian-backed group that rejects peace with Israel. Two militia members were slightly injured in the predawn raid.

The attack puts the spotlight on several thousand Palestinian militia members operating inside Lebanon, who already are accused by some Lebanese of destabilizing the country at Syria's behest. The front's leader, Ahmed Jibril, who lives in Damascus, was named in a recent United Nations report as a suspect in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Israeli officials said Palestinian guerrillas escalated tensions on the Lebanese-Israeli border by firing at least three Katyusha rockets into the northern town of Kiryat Shmona late Tuesday, wounding three people.

It was the first attack in five years against the town, which was a regular target of Katyusha strikes until May 2000. That was when Israel withdrew from a self-declared "security zone" in southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.

The army's top commander for northern Israel, Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, blamed the rocket attack on the front's main ally, Syria, which has been implicated in the UN probe into Hariri's killing. Adam vowed to retaliate against future attacks launched from Lebanon, and he did not rule out targeting Syria.

"If Kiryat Shmona residents don't sleep quietly, then the residents of Beirut won't sleep quietly," he told reporters. "This is an unequivocal message."

The front's base in Naameh, about 10 miles south of Beirut, is a maze of fortified concrete tunnels in a hillside. Israeli jets yesterday fired two missiles at one of the tunnels, leaving it a pile of stones and rubble.

The group's commander in Lebanon, Anwar Raja, denied that his guerrillas were involved in Tuesday's rocket attack. "This air strike is an Israeli attempt to depict the presence of Palestinian groups in Lebanon as a source of instability, while the Israelis continue to violate Lebanese sovereignty in the air, land and sea," Raja said.

In October, hundreds of Lebanese troops were deployed around the front's bases in Naameh and in the mountains along the Lebanese-Syrian border. It was an attempt by the Lebanese government to prevent the militia from receiving weapons and supplies from Syria. But the Lebanese army eased its blockade over the past month, and it now keeps only several dozen soldiers at checkpoints leading into the bases.

While fighting along the Lebanese-Israeli border has decreased dramatically since the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, the area remains a front line between Israeli forces and guerrillas from the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah. On Nov. 21, Israel and Hezbollah exchanged artillery fire and rockets for hours, killing four guerrillas and wounding 11 Israeli troops.

Hezbollah and Palestinian militias have come under international pressure to disarm, especially after Hariri's killing. A UN resolution passed last year demanded all militias in Lebanon surrender their weapons. But Hezbollah has refused to disarm and so far has been supported by the Lebanese government, which argues that the group is not a militia but a movement fighting Israeli occupation of a disputed area called Shebaa Farms.

Lebanese leaders are more eager to disarm Palestinian groups, but they have avoided confronting the militias for fear of bloodshed. Lebanese officials also have rejected UN and U.S. demands to deploy the Lebanese army along the border with Israel, leaving the area under Hezbollah's control.

In a rare rebuke of an attack on Israel, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora yesterday condemned both the Palestinian and Israeli actions. "These acts - the firing of rockets, and the Israeli raids and airspace violations - are aimed at undermining stability in Lebanon and at distracting attention from internal reforms," he said.