BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army Sunday got a much-needed military boost in its open battle against terrorism, with the United States delivering $25 million worth of weapons, including heavy artillery, and France promising to send the first batch of Saudi-funded French arms in April.
The U.S. arms delivery was the latest American military aid, reflecting Washington’s renewed commitment to helping Lebanon battle Islamist militants along the border with Syria.
The U.S. and French decisions highlighted the two countries’ concern over volatile stability in Lebanon, which is facing serious threats from Syria-based jihadis who have repeatedly clashed with Lebanese troops in areas near the border with Syria.
The U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale, who presided over the delivery of weapons at Beirut Port, said the arms would be used to “defeat the terrorist and extremist threat from Syria.”
“Support for the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces] remains a top priority for the United States,” Hale said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy. “Recent attacks against Lebanon’s Army only strengthen America’s resolve to stand in solidarity with the people of Lebanon to confront these threats.”
“We are fighting the same enemy, so our support for you has been swift and continuous,” Hale said. “I am confident that, with the right equipment, Lebanon’s soldiers can defend Lebanon successfully.”
“And the equipment we are providing is exactly wh at the Army leadership has asked for, and exactly what the Army needs,” he added.
Hale, accompanied by Brig. Gen. Manuel Kerejian, director of the LAF Logistics Brigade, said the shipment included over 70 M198 Howitzers and 26 million rounds of ammunition and artillery of various shapes and sizes, including heavy artillery.
Last month, the U.S. delivered dozens of new armored Humvees to help protect Lebanese soldiers.
Hale said Lebanon was the fifth-largest recipient of U.S. military assistance. He added that weapons worth over $100 million were given to Lebanon last year and over $1 billion worth in the last eight years.
“The United States is providing top-of-the-line weapons to the LAF to help Lebanon’s brave soldiers in their confrontation with terrorists,” Hale said. “American assistance to the Lebanese Army is the best of its kind and is the best equipment on the market.”
While the U.S. has donated more than $1 billion in aid to the Lebanese Army over the last decade, most previous donations have been nonlethal equipment, including armored personnel carriers, light aircraft and communication systems. The U.S. military aid along with the expected delivery of Saudi-funded French weapons to the Lebanese Army come as the military is engaged in an open battle against Islamist extremists who have launched several attacks on troops over the past months in areas near the Syrian border, killing and wounding scores of soldiers.
This is the latest military aid promised to Lebanon. In November, France and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement for Paris to provide the Lebanese Army with military equipment, including helicopter gunships, funded by the $3 billion Saudi grant. The first shipment of those weapons is due to arrive in April.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Prime Minister Tammam Salam on the sidelines of a Munich security conference that France would begin delivering to the Lebanese Army the first batch of French weapons funded by the Saudi grant in April.
“Prime Minister Tammam Salam was informed by the French foreign minister that the first shipment of French weapons ... would arrive in Lebanon in the first week of April,” according to a statement released by Salam’s office.
Fabius assured Salam that France was keen to help Lebanon bolster its security, stability and national unity and strengthen its constitutional institutions.
Referring to French presidential envoy Jean-Francois Girault, who visited Beirut last week as part of a French initiative to break the 8-month-old presidential deadlock, Salam thanked Paris for its efforts in this issue.
Fabius stressed that his country would continue its contacts with all the rival Lebanese parties in order to reach a solution to the presidential crisis.
While in Munich, Salam met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who expressed hopes that dialogue between Lebanon’s rival factions would lead to “a positive change” in the country’s political crisis.
He also met separately with Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and the foreign ministers of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Norway.
During his meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Salam called on Tehran “to assist in the election of a Lebanese president as it had backed the formation of a coalition government,” according to a statement released by Salam’s office.
In response, Zarif said: “Iran is keen on seeing a new president in Lebanon and is ready to support any agreement reached by the Lebanese, particularly the Christians.”
Speaker Nabih Berri said Iran considered the presidential election to be an internal Lebanese affair. “Iranian officials have relayed this position to Girault,” Berri was quoted by Ain al-Tineh visitors as saying.
Praising the ongoing dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah and last week’s campaign to remove political posters and banners from Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli in line with the agreement reached by the two sides, Berri said the presidential issue would be the next item on the dialogue agenda after the security item.
However, he said the regional situation did not show “any positive signal” that would help break the presidential deadlock.
For his part, MP Walid Jumblatt called on the March 8 and March 14 parties to reach a compromise to end the presidential vacuum and not to wait for an agreement by regional powers that could take a long time.
“The presidential vacuum will gradually lead to undercutting the president’s powers by disregarding previous norms and adopting new norms through successive mechanisms approved by the Cabinet, thus giving the impression that the country is functioning normally without the need to elect a new president,” Jumblatt said in his weekly article to the Progressive Socialist Party’s online Al-Anbaa newspaper.
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