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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Military Source Denies Presence of British Troops in Lebanon
2014-12-03
[AnNahar] A high-ranking military source denied on Tuesday that British troops are present in Leb to monitor the country's border with Syria to prevent fighters from the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group to infiltrate into the small Christian town of Ras Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa.

The source stressed in comments to al-Joumhouria newspaper that the a report published on Sunday in the British Telegraph is "no secret."

The Telegraph reported that a British team has secretly saved Ras Baalbek from advancing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
(ISIL) forces by constructing a network of watchtowers.

The source said that the British team only helped the Lebanese army in building 12 towers to facilitate the monitoring of the border and combat terrorism.

However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well...
the source stressed that "there are no British forces in Leb," pointing out that "only British technical teams are present to aid in constructing the towers."

The source presumed that the report aims at convincing the British public opinion that their country "is still strong in the Middle East and its army is distributed across the world, but it doesn't mean they are present inside Leb."

The towers were built in 17 days in July and finished less than two weeks ago, the Telegraph said.

The army and security forces had been carrying out in recent months raids in various regions throughout Leb in search for wanted runaways and suspected terrorists.

Jihadists from the IS group and al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra
...the current nom de guerre of al-Qaeda in the Levant, which isn't to be confused with al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant...
Front briefly overran the northeastern border town of Arsal in August. The Islamists withdrew from the town, abducting a number of troops and security forces.

Three hostages have already been killed by their captors, and the country has been on edge for months over the fate of the remaining soldiers and coppers.

Leb is deeply divided over the war in Syria.
Posted by:trailing wife

#4   lost between gigs
Posted by: Skidmark   2014-12-03 21:29  

#3  Heisenbergs' Commandos! Awesome!

Also: WMAGNFAB one that occasionally got over choomed and lost between gigs.
Posted by: Shipman   2014-12-03 09:44  

#2  The SAS are running ops in Lebanon, but are only actually there 10% of the time, so they're not really there unless there's 10 of them present.
Sort of like Heisenburg's commandos.
Posted by: ed in texas   2014-12-03 08:02  

#1  Well that probably means it is the SAS and no one in the British Government ever talks about what those guys are up to...EVER.

I do know from anecdotal information that the SAS was in downtown Tripoli calling in airstrikes during the 2011 revolution and were in Benghazi calling in airstrikes also.
Posted by: Mystic   2014-12-03 00:21  

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