Najjar: Hizbullah not responsible for rocket attacks

By Nicholas Kimbrell and Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT/AL-MANSOURI: Lebanon's Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar said Sunday that Hizbullah was not responsible for the two rockets fired at Israel from South Lebanon early Saturday morning, blaming instead poorly armed militants or a new armed group. Najjar, a Lebanese Forces politician in the majority government and a political rival of Hizbullah, said the Shiite movement, which heads the March 8 opposition, would not engage in such provocative measures in advance of parliamentary polls slated for June 7.

The primitive nature of the attack, Najjar told the Voice of Lebanon radio, "indicates those who did this either belong to a militant group with no modern arms or are a new group that has emerged for a specific agenda ... Hizbullah and its allies have no interest in launching rockets, especially when we are approaching the elections."

Early Saturday morning, two Katyusha rockets were fired from the area south of Tyre toward northern Israel by an unknown party. One of the rockets crossed the border, hitting the Israeli settlement of Maalot, while the other failed to leave Lebanon landing between the border towns of Naqoura and Alma Al-Chaab.

Israeli medical officials said that three people were lightly wounded in the attack and two were being treated for shock.

Israel fired two artillery salvos, in response, less than an hour after the rocket attack. The eight shells landed between the towns of Al-Mansouri and Al-Qlayleh, causing no casualties.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman condemned the Israeli strike as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended that hostilities of the month long 2006 summer war between Israel and Hizbullah. Sleiman also denounced the firing of rockets from Lebanese soil, calling the attacks a "challenge to the Lebanese will."

"South Lebanon should not be base for launching rockets," the president said.

Similarly, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called the Israeli shelling "an unacceptable and unjustified violation of Lebanon's sovereignty." He also condemned the group that fired the rockets from Lebanon. The assault, he said, threatened national security and constituted a breach Resolution 1701.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also condemned the cross-border violence.

Following the artillery shelling, fears in South Lebanon that the Israeli counterstrike would expand were high. Some residents in the area around Tyre fled their villages and others stayed indoors. The streets in the Al-Mansouri/Al-Qlayleh area were mostly empty following the strikes.

A young girl told The Daily Star that school had been cancelled in the middle of mid-term examinations because of the shelling.

In a statement released Saturday, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) confirmed that two rockets had been fired from Lebanon, prompting the Israeli response. It said that two wooden launchers had been found in the fields of a banana plantation, and added that the LAF, in cooperation with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), had intensified patrols, searched the area and begun an investigation.

UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane also said that searches and patrols had been intensified and that investigations were still ongoing. She added that the UNIFIL command was in touch with force commanders in the LAF and the Israeli army. "It is incumbent of these parties to maintain the cessation of hostilities," she told The Daily Star.

Bouziane added that despite Saturday's reciprocal cross border attacks, collaboration between UNIFIL and the LAF was "actually quite positive," noting the success of joint patrols in finding weapons caches and rockets that were or could be used to target Israel.

"The confrontation has not escalated and that's a positive development," she said.

But even though violence has not expanded beyond tit-for-tat attacks, recent cross border strikes have fueled an intense war of rhetoric between Israel and Hizbullah.

During a campaign trip to northern Israel in early February, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned of devastating reprisals if Hizbullah were to attack Israel. "I want to say here on the border, that I don't recommend that Hizbullah test us because the consequences would be more painful than one could imagine," he said.

In January, during Israel's three week bombardment of the Gaza strip, rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel on two separate occasions, causing no casualties. In each case Israel responded, firing artillery shells across the border.

Hizbullah denied responsibility for both rocket attacks in January, and the group's spokesman told The Daily Star Sunday that Hizbullah had played no part in Saturday's strike. "We have nothing to do with what happened yesterday," Ibrahim Moussawi said.

In addition, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a Syrian backed group that operates in the Eastern Bekaa, denied an responsibility for Saturday's attack. The PFLP-GC had refused to confirm or deny responsibility for the attacks in January.

For its part, Israel placed the blame for the attack squarely on the Lebanese government. "The Israeli army considers this a serious incident and believes it is the responsibility of the Lebanese government and the army to prevent this rocket fire," an Israeli army spokesman said Saturday.

Israeli officials have regularly warned that they will hold the Lebanese government responsible for all attacks originating from Lebanon, in particular, any aggressive actions taken by Hizbullah, which belongs to Lebanon's unity government.

Late last week, the hawkish leader of the Israel's rightwing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, was charged with forming a government after his party saw big gains in Israeli parliamentary elections. On Friday, in a clear reference to Hizbullah, Netanyahu said that "the terrorist forces of Iran threaten us from the north."

Hizbullah could take control of the Lebanese government if their opposition coalition wins the parliamentary elections this June, leading to a potential showdown with a far-right Israeli government.

In his radio interview Sunday, Minister Najjar warned that if US overtures in the region, particularly toward Iran and Syria, backfire "Netanyahu can convince the Americans to resort to a military solution, and this is what we fear."