Twin explosions kill 27 in north Lebanese city

By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) -- Twin car bombs exploded outside mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli Friday, killing at least 27 people, wounding over 350 and wreaking major destruction in the country's second largest city, Lebanese Health Ministry officials said.

Footage aired on local TV showed thick, black smoke billowing over the city and bodies scattered beside burning cars in scenes reminiscent of Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

Deadly blast near Hezbollah complex in Beirut

At least 20 people killed in southern suburbs of Lebanese capital, near complex used by Shia movement.

A car bomb explosion has killed at least 20 people in Beirut's southern suburbs, according to the Lebanese Interior Ministry.

Car bomb kills 14 in south Beirut suburb

By ZEINA KARAM
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) -- A powerful car bomb ripped through a crowded southern Beirut neighborhood that is a stronghold of the militant group Hezbollah on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and trapping dozens of others in burning cars and buildings in the latest apparent violence linked to the civil war in neighboring Syria, officials said.

Gunmen shoot Lebanese mayor as Syria war ignites local rivalries

BEIRUT |(Reuters) - Gunmen shot the mayor of a town in Lebanon and killed two of his companions only hours after he oversaw a hostage swap with a rival clan in an area increasingly riven by sectarian divisions, security sources said on Sunday.

The attack near the border with Syria highlights how the civil war there has worsened enmity between Lebanese Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim militias that support opposing sides of the two-year-old conflict.
Mayor Ali Hujeiri, a Sunni from the town of Arsal, was shot in the majority Shi'ite town of Labweh as he returned from the hostage exchange with a rival Shi'ite clan. He was transferred to hospital and doctors said his wounds were not life-threatening.
The sources said the attack was carried out by residents of the area, but did not elaborate.
The Bekaa Valley region, where the attack happened, is religiously mixed. Some areas are controlled by the Shi'ite militant Hezbollah group which is helping President Bashar al-Assad crush the revolt. Other parts, like Arsal, are Sunni, and residents provide a safe haven for majority-Sunni Syrian rebels.
The hostages were being held in relation to an incident in June in which four of Labweh's residents were killed by rebel fighters, the sources said.
The recapture of the Syrian border town of Qusair in June by Assad's forces, spearheaded by Hezbollah guerrillas, led to an influx of Syrian rebel fighters and civilians into Lebanon and more violence spilling over into the Bekaa region.
Rockets fired from areas believed to be controlled by Syrian rebels have targeted the Shi'ite town of Hermel, while Syrian helicopters have crossed into Lebanon and fired at buildings in Arsal.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

aad Hariri: Hezbollah has lost its claim to bear arms against Israel since joining the war in Syria.

Lebanon's former prime minister Saad Hariri said that the Shia group Hezbollah has lost its claim to bear arms against Israel since joining the war in Syria.
"The idea... that Lebanon needs the weapons of the resistance (Hezbollah) in order to face the Israeli threat... is an idea that has expired," Sunni Muslim leader Hariri said on Friday.
Hezbollah's weapons "have been shifted from fighting the Israeli enemy to fighting the Syrian people", he said in a television address from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he lives.
Hariri charged that the weapons belonging to Hezbollah were being used "to instill fear into Lebanon's political life".
In 2008, Hezbollah fighters seized control of a section of western Beirut during clashes with supporters of Hariri, sparking fears of a new civil war in Lebanon.
In recent months Hezbollah, whose military wing was blacklisted by the European Union in July, has fought in Syria alongside troops of President Bashar al-Assad to help crush an anti-regime armed opposition.
Hariri's remarks come a day after Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said for the first time that Hezbollah's arsenal should be at the service of the Lebanese state.
On Thursday, Sleiman also said he opposed the Shia movement's involvement in the conflict in Syria.
Hariri, the son of slain billionaire former premier Rafiq Hariri, has not been in Lebanon for nearly two years for fears of attempts of his life.[Al jazeera]

Rockets land near Lebanese presidential palace; no injuries reported

BEIRUT | 

(Reuters) - Two rockets landed in an area east of Beirut late on Thursday close to a military compound and Lebanon's presidential palace, security sources said.
No one was hurt in the incident but it marked the second time in two months that rockets have been fired in the area, amid heightened sectarian tension in Lebanon over the civil war in neighboring Syria.
Sunni Muslims in Lebanon mostly support the Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority which is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Fighters from Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah have fought inside Syria in support of Assad's forces against the rebels.
The violence has also spilled over into Lebanon, with deadly clashes in the coastal cities of Tripoli and Sidon and rocket attacks by suspected Syrian rebels on Shi'ite towns in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
The sources said one of the rockets fired on Thursday landed in a swimming pool in a private residence and the other landed next to a military training college.
(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Tents, garages, shops: Syria refugees hide in Lebanon shadows

By Stephen Kalin

TRIPOLI, Lebanon |

(Reuters) - Atop a mountain lined with olive and cypress trees overlooking the Lebanese city of Tripoli, a disused shopping center houses nearly 1,000 refugees who have fled Syria's civil war.
In the space of a few months the once-empty four-storey complex has become one of more than 360 informal settlements of refugees surging into Lebanon, a country overwhelmed by a sudden influx from its larger neighbor's civil war.
"We have become like a small state," said Um Mohamed, who fled the Syrian city of Homs and became the first person to move into a vacant shop in the Tripoli mall, settling in the empty building with her three children in October.
Since then, it has become a bustling indoor town. Empty shops have been fitted with plywood facades and bedsheets for doors. Laundry hangs across the inner courtyard where men recline on foam cushions and dozens of children roam about. A young man cuts boys' hair while veiled women on the second storey sell carrots, lemons and watermelons.
"People are finding it increasingly hard to find adequate shelter, and even the shelter that they're finding and they're renting is not adequate, so people are really becoming desperate," UNHCR representative in Lebanon Ninette Kelley said.
The number of Syrian refugees in the region has doubled in the last four months as a two-year-old conflict entered a particularly bloody phase, and the brunt of the exodus is now being born by tiny Lebanon, a fragile country that shares the sectarian divisions that tore its neighbor apart.
Unlike other countries in the region, Lebanon refuses to let Syrian refugees move into formal camps, a step which would allow them to put down roots and more easily receive systematic aid.
Syrians are seeking shelter wherever they can find it: in garages, abandoned buildings, and makeshift tented settlements.
According to U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, 666,000 refugees have registered or are waiting to register in Lebanon, compared with 513,000 in Jordan, 431,000 in Turkey and more than 100,000 each in Iraq and Egypt.
Including those who are not claiming refugee status such as migrant laborers and their families, 1 million Syrians are now living among a population of just 4 million Lebanese.
MAKESHIFT SHELTER
Around the region, the welcome offered to Syrians is growing colder. Turkey officially maintains an "open border" policy but has also tightened security on its 900 km (600 mile) frontier, building barbed wire fences to make it more difficult to cross outside official gates. Jordan closed some crossings this year, stranding thousands of Syrians at the border, aid workers said.
Some Lebanese complain that the Syrians' arrival has led to sharp increases in rents and food prices, and put a strain on public services such as electricity, transport and hospitals.
In Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, an improvised camp near the village of Kfar Zabad is nestled between grape and peach groves a few kilometers from the Syrian border. About 60 tents made of wooden planks and worn fabric are packed onto a plot of cracked land turned to mud by streams of waste water.
Aminah sits in a bare tent and cradles a swaddling baby in her arms. The 20-year-old mother of two arrived from the Aleppo countryside two months ago and gave birth to the baby girl in the camp two weeks ago with no medical attention.
"There's no water, no electricity, no aid," she said.
At a nearby camp in Terbol, refugees beseech visiting aid workers to improve sanitation and other services. Formerly a settlement for migrant workers on privately owned land, it has little room for the refugees who arrived in recent months. They fear winter will see their cold tents flooded by heavy rains.
International aid groups are limited not only by budgets but also by political obstruction and legal restrictions.
Lebanon has been mired in political stalemate since March when its powerful Shi'ite militia Hezbollah openly joined the Syrian war on behalf of its long-time ally, President Bashar al-Assad. It fears large camps could offset the fragile balance between its own diverse religious and ethnic groups.
Refugees are hardly a new issue for Lebanon: 10 percent of the people living in Lebanon are descendents of Palestinians who arrived 65 years ago. They are still mainly confined to camps, denied citizenship and excluded from working in dozens of professions such as medicine and law. Their presence was an important factor in Lebanon's own 1975-1990 civil war.
Beirut is alarmed by examples like Jordan's Zaatari camp, which has attracted 115,000 Syrians since it opened a year ago and is now effectively Jordan's fourth most populous city.
UNHCR's Kelley called in February for the establishment of transit sites where refugees could be offered temporary food and shelter before other accommodation is found. Such a step would require authorization from the Lebanese government.
But without big formal camps to house refugees, Lebanon will have to host its Syrians ad hoc, in makeshift places like the one where Aminah rocked her newborn baby.
"There's nowhere else for us to go," she said.
(Editing by Dominic Evans and Peter Graff)

Lebanese wife of Syrian writer indicted in killing

BEIRUT (AP) -- The Lebanese wife of a pro-government Syrian journalist had him killed last month by relatives who shot him repeatedly, according to an indictment reported Tuesday by Lebanon's state news agency.

It was first thought that the murder of Mohammed Darrar Jammo was linked to the Syrian civil war and the sectarian strife that has spilled across the border.

The charge sheet told a different story altogether.

Jammo, who spoke out stridently in favor of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Lebanese Hezbollah allies, was shot dead on July 17 in the southern Lebanese town of Sarafand, a Hezbollah stronghold. Authorities said gunmen raided his apartment and shot Jammo nearly 30 times.

Suspicion fell on extremist Sunni militants who support the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Assad in neighboring Syria.

In the aftermath of the killing, Jammo's wife cried hysterically before cameras and then went to Syria to attend his funeral and burial.

Indications that the brutal killing was not what it appeared began to emerge the next day, when the Lebanese army issued a statement saying it was not politically motivated.

On Tuesday, the Lebanese news agency reported Jammo's Lebanese wife, Siham Younes, and her brother and nephew were arrested after an investigation showed they were behind the killing. The three were quickly indicted and face possible death sentences.

Officials said Jammo and his wife fought before his death but did not detail the nature of the family dispute.

Lebanese media reports said Jammo had taken to leaving his wife for long periods of time, withholding money from her, and had been planning to divorce her and return to Syria, taking their daughter, Fatima, with him.

The wife was arrested in Syria and handed over to Lebanese authorities. (AP)

Syrian refugees in Lebanon face suspicion

By BARBARA SURK
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) -- They're lightweight, easy to assemble and have covers that are supposed to keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The U.N. refugee agency wants to test these individual housing units with an eye toward using them as shelter for Syrians fleeing their country's civil war.

But the plan is meeting stiff resistance from Lebanese officials, who fear that elevating living conditions for Syrian refugees ever so slightly will discourage them from returning home once the fighting ends. That frustrates aid organizations who are desperately trying to manage the massive refugee presence across the country.

Lebanon's refusal to set up any kind of organized accommodation for tens of thousands of Syrians - including refugee camps or government-sanctioned tent sites - is a reflection of its own civil war demons. It underlines the nation's deep seated fear of a repeat of the 1975-1990 war, for which many Lebanese at least partly blame Palestinian refugees.

Many regard the Syrians with suspicion and are worried that the refugees, most of them Sunni Muslims, would stay in the country permanently, upsetting Lebanon's delicate sectarian balance and re-igniting the country's explosive mix of Christian and Muslim sects.

"It's the fear of everything permanent, or semi-permanent, because of the Palestinian experience in Lebanon," said Makram Maleeb, a program manager for a Syrian refugee crisis unit at Lebanon's Ministry for Social Affairs.

"Any move toward a camp situation is quite worrisome because it suggests a permanent situation for the refugees," he told The Associated Press.

Palestinians living in Arab countries - including the 450,000 in Lebanon - are descendants of the hundreds of thousands who fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948. They remain in Lebanon's 12 refugee camps because Israel and the Palestinians have never reached a deal that would enable them to return to their homes that are now in Israel.

The civil war in Syria, now in its third year, has killed more than 100,000 people and uprooted millions from their homes. Many fled to Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, a short drive away from the capital, Damascus.

On any given day in Lebanon, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of refugees arrive in cars loaded with children and belongings. Their presence has swelled the country's population of 4.5 million by a fifth. It's an astounding statistic for the tiny country and represents the highest number of refugees per capita of any country in the region.

Officials say an estimated 1.2 million Syrians are now in Lebanon - including some 620,000 registered refugees. Most arrived over the past eight months.

With the government providing none of the facilities and land that authorities in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq have allocated for the refugees, many Syrians in Lebanon live in appalling conditions, finding shelter in slums, tents and tin shacks strung with laundry lines and wedged between farm lands outside towns and cities.

On a casual walk in Beirut, one finds Syrians sheltering in underground parking lots, under bridges and old construction sites with no running water, sanitation, electricity or protection from Lebanon's sizzling summers and its freezing winters.

"The kids get sick all the time here," said Raghda, a 48-year-old mother of eight, living in an abandoned police station in the eastern Lebanese town of Majdal Anjar, along with 21 other relatives. They are crammed into three rooms without proper sanitation or clean water.

About 10 percent of the refugees are accommodated in unfinished private houses, and others live in garages, shops and collective shelters, according to the UNHCR. Most of them - over 80 percent - rent accommodation that costs more than $200 a month on average.

Lebanese officials say they are aware of the magnitude of the crisis, the health risks involved and the possibility that deepening resentment of refugees among the hosting population could turn into an armed conflict inside Lebanon as the civil war drags on in Syria.

Still, they insist the government will not approve any plans for setting up refugee camps or sanction erecting any kind of structure specifically designed to accommodate refugee families on Lebanese soil no matter who designs it and who pays for it.

"It's distressing and everyone is feeling anxious, wondering if they will ever go back as the fighting goes on and on and on," Maleeb said.

Still, he said it was unlikely the housing unit would be approved.

Ninette Kelley, UNHCR representative in Lebanon, said the refugees "desperately want to return home." But having people live in appalling conditions will not force them out of Lebanon before the fighting stops in Syria, she said.

`"There is this psychological worry that if people are put in a semi-permanent structure, they will never leave," Kelley told the AP. They will leave, she said, adding that one of the greatest impediments of going home after the fighting ends is not having a place to live in Syria.

The 17.5-square-meter (yard) refugee housing unit would offer a family of five a "more dignified life in exile," said Kamel Deriche, UNHCR's operations manager in Lebanon, and enables refugees to dismantle it, pack it and carry it home to reuse as a temporary accommodation until their family home is rebuilt.

Compared to a tent, which has to be replaced every three to four years, the unit's life span is expected to be up to seven years. And the price of about $1,000 per unit makes it more economical, Deriche said.

"It's not a permanent structure and we are not establishing camps by any stretch of the imagination," Kelley said, adding that the unit would be only one of several shelter options for the agency to use.

A prototype of the prefabricated house designed by the Swedish furniture manufacturer IKEA has been sitting in the front yard of UNHCR's Beirut headquarters for a month.

The agency has been lobbying Lebanese officials for permission to try out 15 units over a period of six months before they can be deployed, but so far to no avail. UNHCR also intends to test the units in climate conditions of northern Iraq and in Ethiopia, Deriche said.

Lebanese officials say the historic connotation of a tent for refugees, let alone a housing unit, weighs heavy on the nation that is still reeling from the devastating 15-year civil war. The Syrian fighting has frequently spilled over into Lebanon over the past two years, deepening tensions between pro- and anti-Syrian politicians, who have been unable to form a new government since the prime minister resigned in March.

"There will be no camps and family shelters, wooden or pre-fabricated, whatsoever in Lebanon," said Maleeb, the government official.

Anything to do with the Syrian refugees, he added, is "a big political decision, and one that cannot be taken by a caretaker government."

---

Associated Press correspondent Diaa Hadid contributed to this report.

---

Follow Barbara Surk at www.twitter.com/BarbaraSurkAP .

The Lebanese government imposed new entry controls on Syrians

The Lebanese government imposed new entry controls on Syrians on Tuesday in a bid to reduce friction between the host population and the 600,000 who have already crossed.
Ministers said they had no intention of closing the border to refugees fleeing the devastating 28-month conflict in their homeland.
But they said that in future they would recognise as refugees only those fleeing parts of Syria that have been wracked by violence.
"There is an influx that is not motivated by humanitarian needs," Economy Minister Nicolas Nahas told AFP.
"The security forces are therefore going to start checking whether those arriving at the border come from a war-ravaged area before regarding them as refugees. Those who do not will be granted entry as ordinary visitors."
Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Fawr said that from next week special teams would start shutting down the unlicensed Syrian-run businesses that have mushroomed, particularly in the eastern Bekaa valley region near the border.
"A security service team recorded 377 illegal businesses in just six villages in the Bekaa," he said.
"Any refugee fleeing the killings, hunger and destruction is welcome but they must respect the laws of Lebanon.
"They have the right to work to feed themselves on building sites or other sectors but not in trade or in businesses that require a permit."
Many Syrian refugees are forced to sleep rough on the streets because they can not afford to rent somwhere to live.
But the presence of 600,000 alongside a population of just four million has sparked mounting friction.
A recent opinion poll found that 54 percent of respondents believed Lebanon should close its doors to the refugees. A full 82 percent said that the refugees were stealing jobs from Lebanese.
[AFP]

Lebanese army raided on Monday and arrested a man who tergeted hezbollah vehicle.

A Syrian suspected of staging an attack last week against a Hezbollah convoy in eastern Lebanon has been arrested by the army, Lebanon's official National News Agency has said.
"A Lebanese army intelligence unit raided on Monday night a house in Majdal  Anjar in the (eastern) Bekaa valley and arrested a man," said the NNA  on Tuesday.
It said the man, a Syrian, is "suspected of having planted several days earlier the bomb on the road leading to the Masnaa (border post) that targeted a Hezbollah vehicle".
On July 16, one person was killed and three others wounded in a bomb blast that hit a convoy of vehicles of Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement, that was en route to the Syrian border, a security source said.
The dead man was among the passengers of the convoy but it was not clear if  he was a Hezbollah member. - AFP

Syrian helicopter fired rockets at a pro-rebel region of eastern Lebanon.

A Syrian military helicopter fired rockets at a pro-rebel region of eastern Lebanon in the early hours of Thursday, a security source told AFP.
"A military helicopter violated Lebanese airspace and fired four rockets at 01:30 am (2230GMT) in the Arsal area, two of which exploded, causing damage," the source said on condition of anonymity.
The attack did not cause any injuries.
Arsal is a Sunni neighbourhood in eastern Lebanon that is broadly sympathetic to the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, and has become a transit point for Syrian refugees, as well as rebels and their weapons.
The area has been targeted on multiple occasions by Syrian regime forces, including in a June 12 attack that hit the centre of Arsal.
That raid prompted a rare warning from the Lebanese army, which threatened to respond if the attacks continued.
[AFP]

Prominent Assad supporter assassinated in Lebanon.

BEIRUT (AP) -- Gunmen assassinated a prominent Syrian pro-government figure at his home in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in the latest sign of Syria's civil war spilling over into its smaller neighbor, security officials said.

Mohammed Darrar Jammo was gunned down, shot nearly 30 times, in the coastal town of Sarafand, a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Assassinations of politicians, army officers and journalists who support President Bashar Assad's regime are not uncommon in Syria, but the killing of a well-known Syrian in Lebanon is rare.

Violence linked to Syria's civil war is increasingly washing across Lebanon, threatening to unleash large-scale fighting in the country. On Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a Hezbollah convoy near the Syrian border, while last week a car bomb in south Beirut wounded 53 people in the heart of the militant group's bastion of support.

Syria's conflict has cut deep fissures through Lebanon and exposed the country's split loyalties. Many Lebanese Sunnis support the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad in Syria, while Shiites generally back Hezbollah and the regime. Clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups in Lebanon have left scores of people dead in recent months, and the violence has escalated as Hezbollah's role fighting alongside the regime has become public.

Jammo, a 44-year-old political analyst who often appeared on Arab TV stations, was one of Assad's most vociferous defenders. In frequent appearances on television talk shows, he would staunchly support the Syrian regime's strong-armed response to the uprising and in at least one case shouted down opposition figures and called them "traitors."

His hard-line stance earned him enemies among Syria's opposition, and some in the anti-Assad camp referred to Jammo as "shabih," a term used for pro-government gunmen who have been blamed for some of the worst mass killings of the civil war.

Lebanon's state news agency published a photo Wednesday of a shirtless Jammo lying on a blue sheet stained with blood, his chest riddled with bullet wounds.

The Lebanese security officials said Jammo's Lebanese wife and daughter were both in the house at the time of the attack. His daughter was later rushed to the hospital after suffering from shock, the officials said.

They added that a Lebanese man was detained near Jammo's house in Sarafand shortly after the shooting and was being questioned.

Sarafand is in predominantly Shiite southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway and Assad enjoys wide support among the local people.

The militant group has taken on a major role in Syria's conflict on the side of Assad's forces, which has contributed to a spike in Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon. It has also prompted warnings from Syrian rebel groups, who have threatened to retaliate on Hezbollah's home turf.

Inside Syria on Wednesday, Kurdish gunmen captured most of a town near the border with Turkey after a day of fighting against jihadi groups in the area, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Such clashes have been common over the past moths in rebel-held areas in northern Syria.

The Observatory said the fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn between the pro-government militia of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, and members of al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant left at least 11 dead people dead, including nine extremists.

The Observatory said the fighting was taking place a few hundred meters from a border crossing with Turkey. It said members of jihadi groups had to withdraw from the town to nearby villages. It said Kurdish gunmen captured a number of fighters in the area.

The fighting broke out Tuesday after the Islamic fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol in the area, capturing a Kurdish gunman. Wide clashes broke out later in the day after the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant rejected a truce offer, according to the Observatory.

By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

forcibly ejected 30 Syrians patients by lebanese hospital.

A Lebanese hospital has "forcibly"  ejected 30 Syrians patients wounded in violence in their country, an activist  said on Monday, while the hospital said they were discharged over unpaid bills.
"The Alameddin hospital in Minieh threw out 30 wounded Syrians from Qusayr"  on Sunday, Khaled Mustafa, director of an office helping refugees in northern
Lebanon, told AFP.
The hospital, in northern Lebanon, has hosted dozens of Syrians from the  town of Qusayr, a former rebel stronghold that fell to government troops last  month, prompting an exodus of residents.
"They were forcibly expelled and were insulted," Mustafa said, adding that  "80 percent of them were fitted with splints because of their serious  fractures."
"The splints were removed without any concern for their health."
"They wouldn't even let them take their personal belongings or their  x-rays," he added.
Mustafa said the patients - some of whom were observing the fasting month of Ramadan - were left to sit on a pavement for two hours before Red Cross ambulances arrived to take them to another hospital in the nearby city of Tripoli.

  AFP reports.