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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Body count at 40 at mass graves in Anjar
2005-12-05
BEIRUT: Mass graves which were dug up in Lebanon over the weekend are believed to hold the bodies of Lebanese soldiers killed during the Civil War. The number of bodies is expected to reach a total of 40 as the Lebanese authorities continue to dig in the third and largest mass grave to be exhumed within a month. "Some of the bones in the graves are more than 20 years old," said forensic expert Fouad Ayoub, who has been designated by the public prosecutor to officially investigate the latest mass grave in an onion farm on the Nabi Azir hilltop in Anjar. The graves are about one kilometer from the former headquarters of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon and are located in territory formerly occupied by Syrian troops.
Well, now there's a clue.
Lebanese troops have been working since Friday using bulldozers and a team of forensic experts to exhume the remains of 28 human skeletons. The bodies, which were exhumed from two mass graves beside each other, had traces of underwear, clothes and military uniforms still attached to the bones.

Ayoub said DNA tests will be conducted on the remains and the results will be compared with a list of missing civilians and soldiers. DNA tests are already being conducted on 21 bodies discovered earlier this month in two separate mass graves located near Beirut, near Beit Mery and the Defense Ministry grounds at Yarze.

While the identities of the bodies are still being investigated, security sources said the 25 bodies found so far -- most now only skeletons in scraps of underwear -- had lain in the shallow graves for over 12 years but it was not clear who they were and how they died, though one wore military trousers. Some security officials have said that they could be Lebanese soldiers killed during an October 1990 Syrian military offensive against Lebanese Army units led by then interim-President Michel Aoun.

There has been no official response from the Syrian government. However, a statement on Syrian News Web site quoted an "informed Syrian source" as saying "the victims were part of 400 Lebanese and Palestinians whom Abu Nidal's Fatah-Revolutionary Council had summarily executed in the Bekaa in the latter years of the Civil War between 1986 and 1991." Abu Nidal was then fighting with late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah mainstream faction and victims of their clashes were said "to have been buried in several locations in the Bekaa."
And if you can't believe the Syrians, who can you believe?
The mayor of the nearby town of Majdel Anjar, who helped lead security forces to the graves, said he believed up to 40 bodies were buried in the area. "These bodies have been buried near the shrine of Nabi Uzeir since 1993. I have known since 1999 but kept silent," Shaaban al-Ajami told reports. He said he kept quiet out of "fear" of being killed prosecution by the Syrian intelligence, which had a tight grip on Lebanon during its 29 years of tutelage. "One of the skulls had the remains of a sock in it, which is proof of the torture tactics used by Syrian intelligence," he said.

There has been no response or visit by any Lebanese official to the mass grave site.
Posted by:Steve White

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