The United States is rerouting $72 million of America’s assistance to Lebanon to help the country’s cash-strapped government boost wages of its soldiers and police officers, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday.
Washington is a key donor of the Lebanese Army and its 80,000 members, providing over $3 billion in military aid since 2006. The announcement Wednesday is the first time the U.S. is allocating funds for wages of security personnel in Lebanon.
The judge investigating the 2020 Beirut port explosion has charged Lebanon’s then-prime minister, Hassan Diab, and two other former ministers with homicide with probable intent, according to a court summons seen by the Reuters news agency.
Other top officials, including the country’s public prosecutor and the head of the domestic intelligence agency, were also charged in connection with the blast, judicial sources said on Tuesday.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization has built more than 20 observation and guard posts along the Israel-Lebanon border over the past year.
According to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War between the IDF and Hezbollah, the terrorist group is forbidden from operating near the frontier.
Hezbollah launched the project in parallel to Israel’s construction of a fortified perimeter fence along the 140-kilometer shared border, Ynet reported on Monday.
The United States will disburse around $60 million via a United Nations agency to support the Lebanese army, a source in Lebanon's government told Sputnik.
"The amount allocated as part of the US aid will be approximately $60 million, with the United Nations Development Programme acting as an international intermediary organization to transfer this sum to the Lebanese army," the source said.
Israel has breached Lebanon's territory by both water and air, Beirut's army said on Monday, despite the two countries having reached an agreement demarcating their maritime borders in October.
Regional media is reporting that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is in a Beirut hospital and said to be in serious condition, setting off intense speculation over the fate and future leadership of the powerful Lebanese Shia paramilitary group with ties to Iran.
In Ashrafieh, the wealthy Christian neighborhood in east Beirut, there is a group of 300 young, muscular, and bearded men patrolling the streets from 6 pm. to 6 am. as part of Neighborhood Watch, but they have an extremist Christian ideology which many have termed neo-fascist. They call the group the Soldiers of God, and its members refer to themselves as the Guardian Angels.
Lebanon's Armed Forces Commander Joseph Aoun on Tuesday reaffirmed the army's continuous cooperation with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to preserve peace in southern Lebanon.
"UNIFIL is a strategic partner of the Lebanese army in implementing UN Resolution 1701," Aoun was quoted as saying by the National News Agency.
