BEIRUT, 18 July 2005 — An apparent Syrian-Lebanon border crisis expanded yesterday with a gunbattle between Lebanese police and smugglers and Syria’s arrest of four more Lebanese fishermen, officials said. The incidents follow Syria’s capture Saturday of five fisherman — four Lebanese and a Syrian — in Syrian territorial waters and an ongoing border dispute that has been delaying hundreds of trucks leaving Lebanon into neighboring Syria bound for other Arab countries.
Many Lebanese speculate that the Syrian measures are in retaliation for April’s forced withdrawal of thousands of Syrian troops from this country amid the maelstrom that followed the Feb. 14 assassination of ex-Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri. Syria was blamed in many Lebanese quarters for having a role in the slaying, but Damascus has repeatedly denied any such involvement.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus yesterday, has called for both sides to maintain good relations. No details were available from the Moussa-Bashar talks. Yesterday’s shootout took place near the Lebanese village of Qaa, 100 kilometers northeast of Beirut, in an area where Lebanon’s border with Syria is not clearly marked. Lebanon recently increased patrols along the area’s mountain trails to curb smuggling.
The smugglers enter Lebanon from Syria and were returning with a load of unspecified contraband when they were spotted and fired on by a Lebanese customs patrol, a border policeman said on condition of anonymity citing security concerns.
One Lebanese officer was slightly wounded and the smugglers returned to Syria, the official said. The Lebanese border policeman also claimed a Syrian border patrol member shot toward Lebanese customs officers.
Security officials in northern Lebanon, also speaking on condition of anonymity because of security issues, said a Syrian sea patrol arrested four Lebanese fishermen yesterday after they entered Syrian waters at Aridah, north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli. On Saturday, Syria captured two Lebanese fishing boats and four Lebanese and a Syrian fisherman for fishing in the same area.
Moussa, who arrived in the Syrian capital on Saturday, urged Lebanon and Syria to continue to base their “very special” relationship on a “positive attitude by both sides.”
Meanwhile, the Christian Voice Of Lebanon radio station claimed Syrian authorities completely closed eastern Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing Saturday, even refusing entry for trucks with foreign licensee plates that had unloaded their shipments to quickly transit Syria to other neighboring countries.
Lebanese transit truckers have been complaining for nearly three weeks of new, tough measures imposed by Syrian customs officials at Masnaa and on the Abboudieh-Dabbousieh crossing in the north.
