Mansour Awaits Complete File on Cross-Border Attacks amid Dispute with Abu Faour
Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said Tuesday he was waiting for the complete file of deadly attacks on Lebanese territories from the Syrian side of the border to take the appropriate measures.
Mansour made the disclosure in a remark to al-Joumhouria newspaper when it asked him what step he was planning to take after he was tasked with filing a complaint with the Arab League to ask for its assistance in confronting the attacks.
He told the daily that he was waiting for the army leadership to provide him with all the documents and details of the assaults “to complete the file and see what measure to take.”
Mansour, who is close to Hizbullah, did not reveal whether he intended to abide by a decision taken during a security meeting held under President Michel Suleiman at Baabda palace on Monday.
The caretaker minister was tasked with referring a memo to the Arab League to explain the nature of the Syrian cross-border attacks and help Lebanon in stopping them.
But Mansour, who on previous occasions has shrugged off requests by Suleiman and Caretaker Premier Najib Miqati to send letters of protest to Syria over repeated attacks on Lebanese villages and towns, engaged in a verbal dispute with Caretaker Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour.
An Nahar newspaper said Tuesday that Mansour claimed the complaint should be filed against the Arab League for taking a decision to arm the Syrian opposition that is fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad.
But Abu Faour, who is loyal to Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat, snapped back at him during the meeting and wondered why he hadn't sent the letters of protest to Syria when regime troops carried out raids on Lebanese territories.
An Nahar quoted sources of the conferees as saying that briefings made by security officials during Monday's meeting revealed that the latest raids on the northeastern town of Arsal and the northern district of Akkar were carried out by regime troops while the source of rocket attacks on the area of al-Qasr in Hermel was most probably the rebel Free Syrian Army.
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