Report: Foreign forces behind Ain el-Helweh clashes
The latest tensions in the region had a “direct link” to the deadly armed clashes that erupted on July 28 in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Helweh in south Lebanon, a senior Western diplomat said.
“Foreign forces incited hardline armed factions in the camp in an attempt to seize control of it, which resulted in the assassination of Palestinian National Security official Abou Ashraf al-Armoushi and a number of his companions,” al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted the diplomat as saying, in remarks published Monday.
“A prominent Gulf state meanwhile intervened by financing the Fatah Movement to prevent the spread of the hardliners,” the diplomat said.
“The Lebanese Army is carrying out very calculated security missions, including the encirclement of the camp’s entrances, with the aim of preventing the defeat of the Fatah Movement in it, disallowing any gunmen from leaving it and protecting the very vital South highway,” the diplomat added.
Hezbollah is meanwhile “in favor of maintaining balance between the warring factions and its decision is not to intervene as long as the army is in control of things and the South highway is secure,” the diplomat said.
“In response to the use of the hardline militants card and the financing of the other group (Fatah) by a certain country, and in the face of the return of (drug) smuggling and the creation of tensions in the region, Saudi Arabia expressed its anger and dismay through asking the 400 Saudi citizens in Lebanon to leave it, after they had come to Lebanon through Turkey in violation of their country’s travel ban for Lebanon,” the diplomat added.
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