This is a great post; I totally agree with your point. The army needs to take strong action but it should not get dragged into a bloody and long war that will cost so many lives among civilians. What the army lacks in not shells and bombs but information and a clear strategy. For both Lebanon’s image and security I believe this random shelling of the camp is doing no good. The terrorists are the least that would be damaged by this; they know where to hide and how to hide- civilians DO NOT!
The army looks so confused indeed, something that I find really depressing!!

The terrorists lives within the civilian, the civilians are not doing anything. The army should be careful, but the whole place is cramped up. I read they ceased-fire for a bit to allow injured civilians to be sent out and treated. The army is doing a great job, though there are always vicitms of war. If these terrorists are not defeated, then all Lebanon will be a victim from these terrorists. Let me remind the reader that many of these people living in the camps, steal and kill and hide in their camps, and this has been going for a long time. I think it’s time to find a good solution.

with all due respect to your line of thinking, I am not sure if your request that the army exposes its plan is logical. I think the army in fact has a plan. We shouldnt be affected by the media pollution saying that the army is hitting mosks and schools. every war against terror has a price, and we should be willing to pay a reasonbale price to eradicate terrorism. so, go army.. intelligently…

hey wass, I totally understand. But still, the minister could still come out and say: don’t worry, we have a solid plan.

Why doesnt Lebenon welcome them as brothers and citizens ?

Great post Mustapha.

Yes andrew thats a great point,I think in light of recent events Lebanon must adress the palestinian dilemma,dont know the reason why they havent been integrated into society after half a century.If anyone has proper details as to why plz inform….

Andrew, they can’t be naturalised and there are quite a few who argue that they don’t want to as they are not Lebanese, but Palestinians and by becoming Lebanese they would be giving up what is the life vision for many of them, that is a return to Palestine. As for the army. If only the LF or ISF had an effective special forces unit….

Well done Mustapha-

Excellent post. You ask the obvious. One hopes we have leaders who listen and think.

May someone tell me why we have to worry about their safety? Israel didn’t worry about the Shia’s. Syria didn’t worry about the Christians’ in the 80’s. Amal didn’t worry about HA and the druze didn’t worry about the christians’ and vice versa. It is a WAR!!!
King Hussein bombed the %$@& out of them in 1967 and Lebanon welcomed 100,000 of them. In Syria they live in camps, are not allowed to own a bibi gun, and need daily passes to come in and out of their camps.
Integrate them in Lebanese society sounds like the humanitarian thing to do but we are not Canada, the US or a rich Western European country able to assimilate refugiees or immigrants. Lebanese born citizen are leaving for lack of opportunities and scarcity of social services.
Lebanon is not a country for immigrants so let’s not think of Palestinians as such. Their status as refugies is “it”. For now at least.
Sorry Israel took their land but why should mine serve as a compensation or playground for dark objectives?
Let’s keep the “haq al-awda” alive and kicking.

Your army probably does have a plan, but it’s likely not all that well thought out.

This situation was thrust upon them, and since soldiers’ blood was shed, anger takes over, not thoughtful consideration of long-term consequences.

Building a true national army takes time and treasure, and in post-civil war Lebanon was building the army such a high priority?

well said Anna, some Lebanese instead of rallying behind their countrymen are busy criticizing the government. There are also many Syrian agents on Bashar’s payroll on some of these boards. I am hoping it’s just the latter.

Ibn Kais? God this kid is growing up fast!

I’m sorry, but don’t you find it quite embarassing that the Lebanese army is treating these poor Palestinian refugees the exact same way that Israelis would have treated them, if not worse?
Is this the Arab pride that you guys keep bragging about? Sure, some of these people may be terrorists, but for God’s sake, there’s something called ASSASSINATION. Why are you bombing the hell out of these refugee camps?

The Lebanese Army’s heavy-handed tactics are counterproductive. They should have sealed the camp allowing in only food and medical supplies and then sent sniper/special ops teams to take care of business. That way there would have been less outcry, less solidarity from other camps and more dead Fath al-Islam. Sometimes less is more. Trying to bomb martyr wannabes into submission is a loosing proposition.

Sun Tzu, of course they should have sent in special ops. Of course they should have used highly trained and equipped snipers and obviously adapted helicopter gunships. Unfortunately this is no computer game. This is a country which does not have the resources of Israel or the West. They do not have these things. They do not have an airforce. The soldiers on the street in Beirut are kids who are paid very little and are armed with a collection of diverse weapons most of which are a good 20 years old. Expenditure on the military is only one of many essential expenditures here and if you have to choose between building a hospital or an army it is not so easy.

Mus, the reason the army shows lack of experience is because it DOES lack 30 years of experience.

If you take into consideration the fact that the army is securing the parameter of the Serail in DT, deploying in the south region for the first time, checking the borders for illegal smuggling of weapons and human beings, combatting militias in Tripoli and eradicating militia from a palestinian camp in Nahr el Bared at the same time, I think our army has an enormous learning curve and it should be commended on its overall work. Think of the successful logistics behind all that at central command and compare it to what politician used to say about the army just two years ago.

If LebaneseArmy stand with the American, they should go to hell.

as a sunni lebanese, i think the best way to solve this problem is by naturalizing all the palestinian and give the right to live and work so they cant be dragged into terrorisim because it is impossible to go back to their land palestine.

Scandi, it’s hard for me to believe that in a country of gun nuts and hunting afficionados such as Lebanon we can’t put together a decent team of snipers. My whole point is that they should keep things low key and stay away from the “Shock & Awe” tactics of Israel and the US. Less spectacle for the media, less civilian casualties, more Fath el-Islam casualties.

If the army doesn’t have such a team, they better get busy putting one together because Fath el-Islam is not the only extremist group operating in Lebanon’s refugee camps. All you really need are good rifles, some high resolution aerial photographs of the camp, and learning to speak with a Palestinian acccent.

Hamoud, what a lier you are MOUUUU? LOL Lebanese Sunni…

Sun Tzu, I have not seen a single sniper rifle whilst here. I am also not sure if they even have the capability to take a good aerial photograph short of going up in a civilian plane. As for infiltrating the camps, well that is very very hard. I sometimes work in the camps and the security and intelligence apparatus is very thorough and everyone knows who is who and who is coming and going. Well we will see what the Arab countires and possibly the US are sending in military aid. It is just as likely that they will agree that the PLO go in and do the job….

All you really need are good rifles, some high resolution aerial photographs of the camp, and learning to speak with a Palestinian acccent.

No, that isn’t all you need, Sun Tzu. You also need some very highly trained snipers who are natural-born world class marksmen. Marines are the best trained in marksmanship in the US military. They qualify on targets at 500 meters. That’s quite a ways out. And the USMC also has the best snipers on the planet, bar none.

I shot high expert (expert is the highest rating) myself, when I was in the Corps. I was nowhere near good enough to be selected for sniper training. Which was find by me because snipers go through hell - which is quite a thing for a guy who was 6 years in the Marine Corps infantry to be saying!

It’s not a computer game. You can’t just hand a hunting rifle to somebody and expect him to get the job done. Not if you *really* want the kind of decisive and precise results you seem to be asking for. If on the other hand you just want somebody with a scoped rifle to start taking pot shots at people, I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem.

Craig, I was just pointing out that Lebanon has a vibrant gun culture which gives the army a large pool of potential recruits. During the Lebanese civil war there were snipers on all sides and some of them were quite good. It is unresonable to assume that you cannot find a few hundred natural-born marksmen in the 60,000 strong Lebanese military.

By the way the entire Nahr El-Bared camp is just 1km2 of narrow alleys and densely packed shanties.

With all due respect to your military experience, a special ops approach makes a lot more sense than deploying artillery and tanks as the Lebanese army has done. They should fight out of uniform and wearing ski masks same as the Fath el-Islam have done. Throw in bullet-proof vests, guns with silencers and night-vision goggles and you have a better than even chance to kill the 300 or so bad guys without too much collateral damage. The snipers can provide cover and take out the occasional bad guy dumb enough to let himself be seen.

The current approach employed by the Lebanese army has no chance whatsoever of succeeding without massive civilian casualties.

Scandi, in the 80s there were bloody battles between Arafat’s Fath and Abu Musa’s Fath el-Intifada in Nahr el-Bared. If history is any guide your hopes that Fath can bring the situation under control with few civilian casualties are misplaced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah_al-Intifada

Sun Tzu, of course what you say makes sense, but my point is that the nature of the Lebanese army is just not like that. They do not have the trained personell that could do what you are suggesting. That kind of training can not be done in weeks either. They also do not have the equipment. You should see the artillery being used, it is more like WWII Howitzers than anything else. Also the main equipment the Lebanese forces have asked for are helmets and ammunition so that should tell you where they are at!

I never said that Fatah would not cause civilian casualties but it would be more politically palateable to the Palestinian populations in the other camps if it were Fatah. I was in Badawi yesterday and it was heart-breaking. These people are absolutely destitute and hate the Fatah al Islam guys but were powerless to stop their activities. Any which way this continues it is not going to be pretty nor straight-forwards.

Hi Sun Tzu,

Throw in bullet-proof vests, guns with silencers and night-vision goggles and you have a better than even chance to kill the 300 or so bad guys without too much collateral damage.

That isn’t a special ops approach you are talking about, when you talk about close assaults against 300 or (probably more) enemies in an urban environment. What you are describing is exactly what US Marines do for a living. You will never find a special operations outfit that would take on such a task. They would call in a battalion of Marines to do it for them. And in the US Marines, the snipers are in the STA platoon of the headquarters company of an infantry battalion, and they function exactly as you describe.

Maybe we have a difference of opinion about what “special ops” is. The only thing you described that is different from a standard USMC op is the being out of uniform part. That’s illegal, and the US wouldn’t do it. Not even the special ops guys.

I do agree with you that it would be better to go in on the ground. But artillery doesn’t fire blind… somebody is calling in grid co-ordinates for those guns. They have a target. If it’s not the right target, that means their Intel is bad. But if their Intel is bad, then it would be bad for an assault as well, wouldn’t it?

You do make good suggestions. I’m just not sure how practical it would be for the Lebanese Army to try and pull something like that off?