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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
The withdrawal of the MNF left Syria as the dominant force in
Lebanon, and Syria acted rapidly to consolidate its grip on
Lebanese affairs. It pressured Jumayyil to abrogate the May 17
Agreement, and he did so on March 6, 1985. This event led to the
resignation of the Council of Ministers and its replacement by a
new government of national unity headed by Rashid Karami.
Syria hammered out yet another security accord, the Bikfayya
Agreement of June 18. Muslim and Druze cabinet ministers had
insisted on the creation of a military command council to replace
the post of commander in chief of the armed forces, a proposal that
was opposed by Christian cabinet ministers, who perceived it as a
dilution of their control over the military. A compromise was
reached providing for the continuation of the post of commander in
chief, to be held by a Maronite as before, but also the
establishment of a multiconfessional six-man military command
council to have authority over appointments at the brigade and
division levels
(see Organization and Command Structure
, this ch.).
Major General Ibrahim Tannus, the army commander, was replaced by
Major General Michel Awn (also seen as Aoun), who was somewhat more
acceptable to Muslims. Furthermore, a new intelligence agency, the
National Security Council, was established, with the stipulation
that it be headed by a Shia Muslim. A Shia general, Mustafa Nasir,
was named as the first director of the new agency. Nevertheless,
the Maronite-commanded military intelligence apparatus remained
intact as a separate but parallel institution. The agreement also
called for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of heavy artillery and
militiamen from the streets of East Beirut and West Beirut, the
dismantling of barricades along the Green Line, and the reopening
of the airport and port. The agreement formally took effect on June
23 and was implemented by July 6, 1985.
Optimistic predictions that the Bikfayya Agreement would end
Lebanon's chronic conflict were dashed as sporadic battles and
terrorist attacks resumed. The accord was criticized vehemently by
elements among the Maronites as Druze, Shia, and Sunni militia
fought one another in West Beirut. Armed Shias stormed and burned
the Saudi Arabian embassy on August 24. On the same day, the
Lebanese National Resistance Front, an umbrella organization
fighting Israel in southern Lebanon, fired two rocket-propelled
grenades at the British embassy. On September 20, in a replay of
the April 1983 attack, a suicide vehicle bomber attacked the new
United States embassy building in East Beirut, killing eight and
wounding dozens. The mounting tension in Lebanon was exacerbated by
Israeli air raids against Palestinian guerrilla camps of the Abu
Musa faction. The Bikfayya Agreement suffered another blow on
August 23, when General al Hakim, the newly appointed Druze chief
of staff of the Lebanese Armed Forces, died in an accidental
helicopter crash. And, on August 30 Maronite patriarch and Phalange
Party founder Pierre Jumayyil died of a heart attack, setting the
stage for a power struggle in the Christian community.
Syria, determined to implement the security plans it had
sponsored, attempted to restore order. It curbed the activities of
the Iranian Pasdaran and Hizballah in Baalbek in the Biqa Valley,
and it quelled the fierce fighting in the northern port city of
Tripoli between the pro-Syrian Arab Democratic Party and the Sunni
fundamentalist Tawhid (Islamic Unification Movement).
Data as of December 1987
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