debkafile: United Arab Emirates and Jordan air forces take part in US weapons-ammo airlift to Lebanon
debkafile‘s military sources report that Friday, May 25, the first cargoes of American advanced weapons, ammunition and special anti-terror combat systems landed in Beirut to boost the Lebanese army’s bid to subdue the radical Fatah al-Islam uprising in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli.
Our sources add that the scale of this military aid injection is extensive.
The transports’ holds are being loaded from US emergency stores in the region. For the first time, Arab and Gulf governments are overtly taking a direct hand in US warfare against al Qaeda in the Middle East as it spreads from Iraq to Lebanon with Syrian connivance. Washington has determined to quench the flames in N. Lebanon before they engulf the rest of the country.
debkafile‘s military sources add that some of the Jordanian air transports are also carrying assistance in the form of officers and instructors of the kingdom’s special force and intelligence, who are well-seasoned in combat against the al Qaeda menace in Iraq and at home. They are now on hand to take command of Lebanese army units and anti-Syrian factions in Tripoli which have failed so far to contain the Fatah al-Islam challenge which has escalated dangerously following the infiltration of pro-Syrian reinforcements to the camp.
They are led by members of the pro-Syrian Tehran-funded Palestinian extremist Ahmed Jibril’s group, armed by Damascus and directed by Syrian military intelligence officers, who maintain a presence in North Lebanon.
Tourists in Lebanon will be bombed and no Christian will be safe unless the Lebanese army lifts is siege of Nahr al-Bared camp. This threat came from al Qaeda in the Levant over a video and web site.
Hundreds of al Qaeda-linked extremists are stirring up the inmates of the Lebanese Palestinian refugee camp of Ein Hilwa in the south to support Fatah al Islam.
About 75 people have been killed in the battles and half of the camp’s 40,000 residents have fled.