World

Lebanese Security Forces Move In

August 9, 2000 / 1:07 AM EDT / AP

Lebanese security forces moved into the former Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon early Wednesday, restoring a semblance of state authority for the first time in 24 years to a region torn by conflict.

Before dawn, a force of soldiers and police officers headed down the coastal highway from the capital, Beirut, in central Lebanon to the south and the border areas Israel vacated in May.

The first units were led by a military police vehicle followed by four armored vehicles carried on two trailer trucks. They crossed the former front line outside this village between what was the occupied zone and government-controlled territory at 6:10 a.m.

The units moved through narrow mountain roads from Kfar Tibnit, six miles north of the Israeli border, toward the main town of Marjayoun in the east. Other units were headed toward Bint Jbeil, another major town in the west.

Interior Minister Michel Murr had said the force comprises 500 soldiers from the military police and anti-terrorism units of the Lebanese army as well as 500 policemen.

The deployment, in a region that makes up 10 percent of Lebanese territory, is token. But it will help fill a vacuum in state authority in the zone that guerrillas have controlled since Israel's May 24 withdrawal.

The force marks the first time the Lebanese government has asserted control of the border areas of southern Lebanon since the 1970s. It had been a battleground for Palestinian guerrillas and Israeli forces and their allied militias since 1976. Israel invaded the south in 1978 and again in 1982. It carved out the border security zone in 1985 before abandoning it in May.

U.N. peacekeepers moved into the former occupied zone Saturday — a step Lebanon had insisted on before its own deployment. But tension in the area continues.

Four people were wounded in the area Sunday and Monday when Israeli soldiers fired at stone-throwers and youths preparing to hurl a firebomb over the border fence near Fatima Gate, the main flashpoint on the border. Israel has repeatedly called on Lebanon to send its own forces into the south and warned it will no longer tolerate stones being thrown across the border.

It was unclear whether Lebanon would deploy its security forces near Fatima Gate. Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss said Tuesday the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanese forces at the gate was "an operational matter and is up to army officers to decide."

Murr has said Lebanese security forces will not deploy along the border itself as that is the job of U.N. peacekeepers.

Lebanon has said it does not want to serve as Israel's border guard in the absence of a peace treaty between the two countries and between Israel and Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.

But Murr also has said there would be no armed guerrillas in the zone once security forces deploy. As of Tuesday evening, the guerrillas still manned positions.

The guerrillas have pledged to cooperate with thLebanese authorities after the Israeli withdrawal.