Qatar emir on Lebanon visit

Dubai: In a high-profile visit of great significance, the Qatari emir Saturday visited Lebanon and toured the southern border towns he helped rebuild after Israel's devastating war on the country in 2006.

Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani's visit comes on the heels of a joint visit to Beirut by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad on Friday.

The leaders sought to ease tensions ahead of the indictments of some Hezbollah members by a UN tribunal over the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Shaikh Hamad's visit to the predominately Shiite area, also a Hezbollah stronghold, is the first of its kind by any Arab leader. Hezbollah could view the visit as tacit support.

Reaching out

Shaikh Hamad was accompanied by Lebanese President Michel Sulaiman and Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, who was making his first visit to the south as prime minister.

"Lebanon is still facing many challenges, primarily the choice of its citizens to maintain the nationalism and Arabism of Lebanon," Shaikh Hamad said.

Thousands of people lined the streets in a show of support for the emir, who was also greeted by Hezbollah commanders and officials.

Lebanon is "a nation that is home to people of all confessions, both Muslim and Christian," the emir noted at the town of Bint Jbeil, which witnessed some of the fiercest fighting in the 2006 war between Israel and the Hezbollah.

Al Assad's visit to Lebanon on Friday was viewed by experts as a symbolic return of Syrian domination of Lebanon with the blessing of the Saudi king. "I think that the Syrian objective is to build on this so that they can return to a situation that more or less existed before their withdrawal in 2005," Beirut-based journalist Michael Young said.

Syria withdrew from Lebanon after Lebanese took to the streets in what was known as the ‘Cedar Revolution' calling for the end of Syrian occupation after the assassination of Hariri.

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