US ‘concerned about Lebanon spillover’

Amman: Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that the United States was increasingly concerned that the escalating fighting in Syria might slip across the border with Lebanon and destabilise that country.

“We’re deeply concerned about this spilling over into Lebanon,” said Kerry, who came to Jordan to attend an 11-country meeting on the deteriorating situation in Syria.

Lebanon, Kerry added pointedly, is “at risk.”

The decision by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia and Iranian ally, to join the battle for the strategic city of Qusair in Syria, and the prospect that the Syrian rebels might respond by carrying the fight to Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, has alarmed the Obama administration.

Kerry said that several thousand Hezbollah members were operating in Syria. Members of Iran’s paramilitary Quds force and Iraqi Shiite militia members, some of whom have been encouraged by Iran to fight in support of the government of Bashar Al Assad, are also in Syria, other American officials said, who like several other United States officials quoted spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The White House has been increasingly concerned that the fierce fighting in Qusair and the sectarian violence in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli will lead to a wider regional conflict.

President Barack Obama called the president of Lebanon, Michel Suleiman, on Monday to urge the Lebanese armed forces to prevent the flow of Hezbollah fighters and weapons across the border into Syria. But Suleiman, a Christian, has little influence over Hezbollah and its fighters.

“We don’t want to see any escalation or spread of this war to Lebanon,” said a senior Obama administration official. “Lebanon is facing enough challenges with nearly 500,000 official refugees and nearly one million Syrians in a country of four million. The last thing it needs is sectarian violence in Lebanon itself.”

Americans officials have also conveyed their worries to the Supreme Military Council or SMC, the military wing of the Syrian opposition that is led by Gen Salim Idris, and urged it not to chase fighters across the border into Lebanon.

“We will continue to urge them not to get involved in Lebanon, but the pressures are there, and even beyond the SMC itself, there are Sunnis and Syrians who might not abide by that,” the senior administration official said.

He added that the United States might condition its promise of increased nonlethal aid to the rebels on their willingness not to strike in Lebanon.

While the United States may have leverage with Idris, it has no ability to control some jihadists — like the Nusra Front, which is also fighting Syrian government forces.

A senior State Department official in Amman said that Syrian opposition commanders in the Homs area had reported that arms and other military supplies had been making their way to Hezbollah operatives in Syria from Lebanon’s Bekaa area.

“We have said that we need to keep Lebanon out of this and we need to find ways to stop the flow coming out of Lebanon,” the State Department official told reporters here, reprising the United States message to the Syrian opposition.

Idris grew up in a village near Qusair, making the battle there a personal matter.

“They are invaders. They are dogs acting like beasts,” he said in an interview, referring bitterly to the Hezbollah fighters. “I swear to god, Hassan Nasrallah will pay the price,” Idris added, referring to the Hezbollah leader.

But Idris also asserted that the rebels did not want to impinge on Lebanon’s sovereignty.

- New York Times