Michael J. Totten’s excellently informative MidEast Journal reports on Syria moving troops into Lebabon (again) and constructing at least semi-permanent fortified positions for them.
A few days ago Lebanese daily newspaper Al Mustaqbal quietly reported a limited Syrian invasion of Lebanon. (Via Naharnet.)
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.
The daily Al Mustaqbal, citing sources who confirmed the cross-border penetration, did not say when the procedure in the Fahs Hill overlooking Deir al-Ashaer in the Rashaya province took place. The sources said Syrian troops, backed by bulldozers, were fortifying positions “in more than one area” along the Lebanese border, erecting earth mounds and digging “hundreds” of trenches and individual bunkers.
To add some more context for this:
Meanwhile, the Syrian government is evacuating its citizens from Lebanon in advance of…something they expect to happen after July 15, 2007.
Along with reports of Turkish troops massed on the northern Iraq border, three US carrier groups in the Persian Gulf, and continued Iranian cross-border activity into Iraq, the overall situation looks pretty twitchy these days. One might even imagine that the situation has a whiff of the atmosphere that Europe was under in the summer of 1914.