 Having rid itself of Syrian occupying forces with a show of people power, Lebanon is now deploying its army to cut off Syrian support for its proxy — a Palestinian group behind some of the worst attacks against Israel over the years.
| Except that it hasn't been doing much against Israel lately. Its orientation is toward internal Leb politix. |
To many Arabs, the outfit that goes by the name of PFLP-GC, for Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, is Syria's tool in its shadowy war against its enemies. It is on the U.S. State Department's terrorist list and has lately been accused of involvement in the February assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri — the event that ended up forcing the Syrians to pull out of Lebanon.
| The organization's a Syrian tool, providing muscle and infrastructure for operations in Lebanon. |
Lebanese troops and armor have surrounded some of the PFLP-GC's bases in the rugged mountains along the Syrian border. The government has said it will not use force, but wants to stop weapons and reinforcements coming in from Syria which it fears will be used to stir up trouble.
| I think they don't intend to lay siege to the PFLP-GC bases, but if they're going to cut off the flow of arms and ammunition to them they're probably going to end up shooting somebody, or at least at somebody. |
The U.N. investigator's report that accused Syria of engineering the Feb. 14 killing of Hariri mentions "people" from the PFLP-GC of having had contacts with three of four Lebanese generals jailed on charges of planning the fatal car-bombing. However, investigator Detlev Mehlis later said its leader, Ahmed Jibril, is not a suspect.
| Not directly, anyway. But if his organization's implicated, then he's implicated. |
Another U.N. report this week also said that Lebanon's efforts to disarm Palestinian militias such as Jibril's have made little headway, partly because they have been receiving more weapons from Syria. Jibril has rejected all the charges, denies meeting the generals, and insists his war is with Israel, not Lebanon.
| It's just coincidence that they've killed more people in Lebanon than in Israel. Could happen to anyone. |
In an interview with The Associated Press in Damascus, where he lives, he said the weapons he has stockpiled in Lebanon are there to protect Palestinian refugee camps and "for the struggle to preserve our rights to self-determination and return" to homes lost when Israel became a state.
| "One o' these days we're gonna use 'em, by Gum! We'll come boilin' outta Leb and into Haifa and we're gonna take over..." |
Jibril is one of those refugees. He was 11 when his family fled to Syria in 1948. In 1968, after a career as a military officer, he founded the PFLP-GC, one of several groups operating under the umbrella of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.
| The military career was in the Syrian army... |
It quickly came to notoriety with a string of bloodbaths: It hijacked one Israeli airliner, machine-gunned another at Zurich's airport, and then blew up a Tel Aviv-bound Swissair plane, killing all 47 aboard. It also mounted repeated attacks on Israelis from neighboring Lebanon. In 1987 a PFLP-GC man on a hang-glider flew into northern Israel and killed six soldiers before being shot dead. One of its greatest triumphs was to capture three Israeli soldiers during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and trading them three years later for more than 1,100 Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian prisoners.
| The hang glider thing was the last operation against Israel I can recall, though I'll admit I wasn't paying close attention... |
Jibril's group fought with Muslim militias against Christian and pro-Israeli forces during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war and his son, Fredo Jihad, ran operations here until he was killed by a car bomb in Beirut in 2002.
| That actually might have been the Mossad, though they denied it at the time. Of course, it could also have been any number of other mini-groups, to include somebody within PFLP-GC with offended dignity. Since the Leb cops never seem to have pinned it on anyone, I suspect that's the case. |
For decades the PFLP-GC shadowed the Syrian regime's unofficial policies in the region and often acted as its foil, waging Syria's campaign to oust Arafat and fighting Syria's foes in Lebanon. While the PLO mainstream has been part of the peace effort since 1990s, Jibril refuses to recognize or do any deals with Israel. But his group and its leftist ideology have been eclipsed by Islamic militant groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and if Syria's influence in Lebanon wanes, so, most likely, will Jibril's. But for now he's defiant. On Friday, addressing thousands of Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus Friday, Jibril declared he stands in "the foremost trench to defend Syria."
| Right. A group of aging, pot-bellied gunnies, occasionally waving guns and remembering when they were tough guyz. |
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