Daily Archives: May 26, 2007

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"The FPM Will Support Any Decision The Army Makes", Gebran Bassil

Gebran Bassil, a high ranking member of the FPM (the Christian party aligned with Hezbollah) announced that the FPM supports “any action the army undertakes”, a position that directly contradicts Hezbollah’s position.

Bassil Explained the divergence by saying that the Hezb has special “religious considerations” in its position, then he directly contradicted Nassrallah by saying: “There is no such thing as a red line to the Lebanese Army”

The FPM has military roots, their leader being a previous leader of the Lebanese Army. The FPM’s website is filled with valentines to the ‘valiant army’s sacrifices’.Mr. Aoun has just landed in Paris to talk with French officials and launch a book.

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Inside The Nahrel Bared Operations. Lebanese Soldiers Talk to Der Spiegel

Make sure you don’t miss Der Spiegel‘s deliciously detailed feature piece about our soldiers in the front line.

Here’s a sample paragraph:

The men smoke, eat fresh plums and make bawdy jokes about each other’s girlfriends. One soldier hands out plastic bags with pita bread, tins of tuna and tomatoes. Most answer questions in flawless English, having received, they say, part of their training in the United States. Some of them are even citizens of both the US and Lebanon.

The men have repeatedly raided the camp during the past 72 hours and are markedly shaken by the house-to-house fighting they have experienced. “These militants are not religious people; they’re sadists,” says Husam, whose voice is hoarse from shouting over the noise of battle. “They decapitated some of our people.” He and his fellow soldiers found Egyptian, Sudanese and Bangladeshi passports on the bodies of dead Fatah Islam militants, he says. “Most of them are not from here. They’re fanatics from outside who have rallied here.”

Read the entire thing here and tell me what you think in the comments section.