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Naharnet has reported that

Syrian troops on Thursday reportedly have penetrated three kilometers into Lebanese territories, taking up positions in the mountains near Yanta in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

News of the invasion has also been reported by al-Mustaqbal and confirmed in an email exchange between Michael J Totten and Michael Young, the opinion page editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star.

Syrian authorities had instructed all Syrian citizens residing in Lebanon to return to their country by July 15, 2007 and rumours are rife that a major eruption will take place in one week’s time.

July 15 is the day before a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the possibility of stationing international experts on the Syria-Lebanon border to monitor illegal arms trafficking to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement. The Security Council is also expected to meet next week to discuss a key report on the assassination of Hariri, generally believed to be the work of the Syrian government.

A ‘quiet’ invasion

Michael J Totten says that he was so surprised to find practically no mention of the Syrian invasion of Lebanon in the media that he assumed the story had to be false…

How could Syria invade three kilometers into any region of Lebanon without triggering a diplomatic and media storm?

So I emailed Michael Young, opinion page editor at Beirut’s Daily Star, and asked him if the story was nonsense. “It is true,” he said, “but the problem is that the 3 kilometers are in isolated areas, so that it isn’t making headlines. However, the UN will be discussing border issues this week, I think, and that will be brought up. The Syrians are ratcheting up the pressure, but with the attack against UN troops in the south, they are, as one UN official put it, playing with fire.”

An attempted coup by Hezbollah?

Walid Phares in The Tank on NRO comments on a Memri report that analyses a number of Arab and Iranian media reports in the past few days. The belief is that an ‘eruption in violence’ is planned, designed to enable Hezbollah and its allies Syria and Iran to form a government of their own and take control of large parts of Lebanon. This plan is two years old but is being publicized only now by Syria and Iran.

Syria theatens Israel: “Vacate the Golan Heights by September or we’ll launch resistance operations”

The New York Sun has reported a top official from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s Baath party threatening that “guerilla resistance operations” would be launched against Israeli civilians in the Golan Heights, if Israel doesn’t vacate the strategic region before September.

The Baath official, who spoke on condition his name be withheld, said Damascus is preparing for Israeli retaliation following Syrian guerilla attacks and for a larger war with the Jewish state in August or September. He said that in the opening salvo of any conflict, Syria has the capability to fire “hundreds” of missiles at Tel Aviv.

Despite this, although a violent clash next week in Lebanon is a real possibility, it would not be aimed at Israel. General Yaakov Amidror, a former senior officer in the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, told Ynetnews:

“This is a warning and a threat, directed not towards not us, but towards the Lebanese government, and against activities by the UN, the US, and the Europeans in Lebanon,” Amidror said. “Can this deteriorate to the point of firing on Israel? It doesn’t look like it now, but it can get there,” he said.

“This signals distress more than power,” Amidror said. “If they (Iran, Syria and Hizbullah) were confident, they wouldn’t go for such extreme maneuver that would expose them to the fury of Sunnis and Christians in Lebanon. Few in Lebanon want Nasrallah to take power. Shiites are the largest sect, but they make up 40 percent of the population. There are 60 percent who don’t like the idea of a Shiite takeover at all,” Amidror explained. He added that tensions could erupt into a full scale civil war in Lebanon, with Shiites on one side and Sunnis, Christians, and Druze on the other. “Civil war occurred in Lebanon in the past, there is no reason to think it can’t happen again.”

General Amidror added

“What’s happening in Lebanon is part of a wider Middle Eastern conflict in which Shiites are trying to push Sunnis out of power. This is part of a conflict against Israel in a wider context, but it is primarily a Shiite-Sunni struggle.”

Update: 10th July

Lebanon’s Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt has described media reports of Syria warning its nationals to flee Lebanon as “unfounded”.

Jumblatt insisted instead of evacuating its citizens, Syria has been sending “thousands of so-called workers and tourists per day,” possibly ahead of an attempt to destabilize the country.

“There is no evacuation of Syrian workers. Instead, thousands are coming a day, including so-called tourists. I am worried, because our working sector is paralyzed, our economy is down, we have no tourism and yet you have this strange influx of many Syrians and also many Iraqis into Lebanon,” said Jumblatt.”

“I am not dismissing that Syria will start major trouble for us to delay the tribunal,” said Jumblatt, referring to a special tribunal set up by the U.N. Security Council to try any indicted suspects in the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in a car bombing in 2005.

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