Suleiman Asks Mansour to Hand Syria Letter of Protest over 'Violation of Lebanese Sovereignty'
President Michel Suleiman tasked on Tuesday Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour with sending a letter of protest to Syria over air raids in the northeastern border area that violated Lebanese sovereignty.
Suleiman said the air raids were “unacceptable” and “violated Lebanese sovereignty.”
A statement carried by the state-run National News Agency said the letter of protest should be aimed at preventing “the Syrian side from repeating such operations.”
In remarks to NBN television later on Tuesday, Mansour said: "When I return to Beirut, I will look into the details and start my contacts."
"The letter of protest requires documents that I don't have here in Nigeria," he added.
Meanwhile, Damascus denied that its warplanes had bombed areas on the Lebanese-Syrian border, accusing “hostile” countries of circulating the media reports.
Suleiman snapped back at Syria, saying "I wish Damascus' denial of bombing Lebanon was true, but the (Lebanese) Army Command confirmed that it did happen."
On Monday, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said “Syrian warplanes bombarded the outskirts of the towns of Khirbet Younin and Wadi al-Khayl in Arsal's barren mountains.”
On Monday, a high-ranking Lebanese army official confirmed to Agence France Presse that Syrian air strikes took place along the border area, without saying whether they had struck inside Lebanese territory.
But a security services official on the ground told AFP that Syrian planes had fired four missiles at Arsal, where many residents back the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Al-Manar television, which belongs to pro-Damascus Hizbullah, said the warplanes had targeted two barns used by "armed men" in the Wadi al-Khayl area of Arsal.
Washington also confirmed Syrian forces had fired at northern Lebanon, calling the strikes "a significant escalation in the violations of Lebanese sovereignty that the Syrian regime has been guilty of."
The shelling came just days after Damascus warned Beirut to stop militants from allegedly crossing the border to fight with rebels.
In a letter of protest, Damascus warned that its forces would fire toward Lebanon if "terrorist cells" continued to infiltrate the country.
Mortar and artillery shells from the Syrian side often explode in Lebanon.
Last week, members of the U.N. Security Council "underscored their grave concern over repeated incidents of cross-border fire which caused death and injury among the Lebanese population, incursions, abductions and arms trafficking across the Lebanese-Syrian border, as well as other border violations."
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