Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government is considering severing the private Hizbullah phone network, that originally started out in south Lebanon, and ended up in Beirut and its suburbs. "We agreed to draw a plan of action for a peaceful resolution of this issue, but we are serious about resolving it because it is a dangerous matter," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi told reporters after a lengthy cabinet session on Monday.Aridi said the government formed a committee to draft a report on recent information that Hizbullah had installed its own communication infrastructure south Lebanon. He said initial reports has shown that the Hizbullah networks "went beyond (the southern village of) Zawtar Sharqiyeh Â… to reach Beirut and the suburbs of Beirut which are outside the security areas of the leadership of the resistance."
Aridi said the government was "determined to protect the Resistance (Hizbullah) and the symbols of the resistance from the Israeli enemy but the information that we gathered do not follow this logic." He did not elaborate further. The daily An Nahar, however, citing cabinet sources, said Tuesday that a report prepared by a ministerial committee confirmed that Hizbullah had privately installed phone networks that have reached Dahiyeh, or the southern suburbs, as well as the Ring and Riad Solh districts in downtown Beirut. The sources said the cabinet instructed Lebanese security forces to perform a "specific task" under which "appropriate measures" would be taken to deal with Hizbullah's move. They said the cabinet was considering authorizing a "security and technical team" to sever the phone network connections.
Siniora was quoted by a source as responding to Hizbullah's act, which was considered a violation to Lebanon's sovereignty, by sarcastically saying: "All we need is (Hizbullah) to ask a musician to compose a new national anthem."