Syrian deployment on Lebanese border: Commandos on right; positions on hill, trucks below.
"Damascus is pressing forward with its plan to occupy Greater Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city and port, DEBKAfile's military sources report. To this end, 10,000 Syrian commando troops have massed at Abboudieh on the Lebanese border ready to follow an advance force which occupied seven villages around the northern city earlier this month, as first disclosed by DEBKAfile on Sept. 20"
The next step in Lebanon's disintegration features, no big surprise, the Syrians, who have been prominent among those bedeviling Lebanon for decades now.
"... Syrian occupation of northern Lebanon will make profound inroads on the strategic position of the United States and Israel in this part of the Middle East, yet Washington and Jerusalem are turning a blind eye."
Perhaps Washingtom and Israel figure Syrian occupation of the area is preferable to the alternative.
True, from a certain point of view, all of Lebanon descending into chaos and serving as yet another battlefield for the Sunnis, Shiites, Wahhabis and all the other sects of the Religion of Peace to occupy themselves killing each other and leave the rest of us alone isn't a particularly unwelcome development.
However, this would be too near to Israel, meaning there's a far better chance of Lebanon turning into another Afghanistan, with infidel troops (under NATO, the UN, or who have you) soiling holy Muslim soil in a valiant fight to quell all that and drag the population into the 21st century etc, etc ...
Watch for this to get far worse.
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5605
