LebaneseForces.com: Fighting for Freedom

LF Students Spreading Awareness

The Lebanese Forces Students distributed flyers at major churches around Lebanon today. The students spread out all over including Ashrafieh, Antelias, Batroun and Saydet el Najet. The flyers were distributed in small transparent plastic bags along with olive leaves on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the Saydet el Najet Church. Pictures from this activity will be posted soon. Thank you to everyone who participated.

click here to view the front of the flyer
click here to view the back of the flyer

Posted by 40-Tactical on Sunday, February 29, 2004 | Permalink

Lahd Gets 20 Years in Hard Labor in Addition to Death

The former commander of Israel's proxy militia during its occupation of South Lebanon, Maj. Gen. Antoine Lahd, has been sentenced in absentia to 20 years in hard labor on a charge of complicity in killing a one-time Hizbullah fighter in 1993. The new verdict, the latest in several absentia sentences that included death, was handed down by the criminal court of South Lebanon's market town of Nabatiyeh on Friday, As Safir newspaper reported Saturday.

Lahd, a retired Lebanese army officer, commanded the now defunct South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia in nearly two decades preceding Israel's withdrawal in May of 2000. He was convicted of High Treason and sentenced to death in absentia in the mid-1990s. Lahd was granted asylum in Israel after the withdrawal. He currently runs a restaurant specialized in Lebanese food in Tel Aviv.

Taken from Naharnet

Posted by 40-Tactical on Saturday, February 28, 2004 | Permalink

Bar Association Asked to Reveal Fate of Lebanese Prisoners still held in Syria

Three human rights groups in Beirut have demanded from Lebanon's Bar Association to try to reveal the fate of dozens of missing Lebanese believed to be held in Syrian jails. The letter to the Bar Association was made public at a joint news joint conference by the Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights-Lebanon, Solid and Solida, which was attended by the families of those missing on Thursday, An Nahar reported on Friday.

Although the Syrian government insists that all Lebanese prisoners had been freed and returned to Beirut in the past two years at President Assad's instructions, the families and the three organizations contend 'dozens' remained in Syrian jails.

During Thursday's news conference, Violet Nassif appealed to President Assad to release her son Johnny. "President Assad is stretching out a hand of peace to the whole world, including enemy Israel. Let him give us our children back. We have proof that they are with him," Mrs. Nassif said, bursting in tears.

Taken from Naharnet

Posted by 40-Tactical on Friday, February 27, 2004 | Permalink

Patriarch Laments Death of Lebanon's Middle Class

Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir has lamented the death of the Middle class in Lebanon as a result of failure by post-civil war governments to cope with the nation's economic woes. "It gives us great pain that the middle class in Lebanon has ceased to exist, leaving a vast starving majority and a small overeating minority," said the head of the Maronite church.

"It is imperative that this imbalance should be remedied before it is too late," the patriarch said in a Sunday sermon at the chapel of his seat in Bkirki marking the beginning of Lent for the Christians. The sermon was highlighted by An Nahar on Monday.

Taken from Naharnet

Posted by 40-Tactical on Monday, February 23, 2004 | Permalink

Cedarwatch Interactive Workshop with Mr. Stephen Stanton

The LF Sydney Chapter would also like to invite all our members and friends to attend a Cedarwatch Interactive Workshop with Mr. Stephen Stanton, the world convenor of Cedarwatch. We urge you to bring any youth that might be interested in Lebanon and Human Rights especially.
For more information click here [Lebanese-Forces.org]

Posted by 40-Tactical on Monday, February 23, 2004 | Permalink

Increase Your Knowledge

A new section called Ouwet 101 has been created. In it you will find various articles which will help you expand your knowledge on various LF related subjects. click here for the Ouwet 101 section

Posted by 40-Tactical on Friday, February 20, 2004 | Permalink

Iran Hopes Geagea May Contribute Information

Iran's foreign minister Kamal Kharazi says he hopes jailed Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea would contribute useful information to reveal the fate of four Iranian diplomats who went missing in Lebanon during Israel's 1982 occupation of Beirut. "President Lahoud has assured me that Mr. Geagea will be formally asked to give any information he possess about the affair," Kharazi told a news conference with which he wound up a three-day visit to Beirut on Friday.

Geagea took the LF command in 1985 after a power struggle with Elie Hobeika, who was the LF security chief when his militiamen seized the four diplomats at a highway checkpoint in northern Lebanon as they were fleeing occupied Beirut to neighboring Syria via Lebanon's north port city of Tripoli early in July of 1982. Kharazi said he had stressed in his talks with President Lahoud and Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah that the affair of the missing Iranians should be a focal point in the second stage of prisoners swap between Hizbullah and Israel under German auspices. Authorities in Tehran are convinced that the four missing diplomats are alive in Israel despite Israel's repeated denials that it holds them, Kharazi said.

He also asserted that Iran would do its best to help determine thefate of missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, although Iran isnot officially a party to the swap negotiations. "Concerning Mr. Arad, I confirm that if we have any information we will exert maximum efforts to help in thismatter, but I would also like to say that the main sides of these negotiations are Hizbullah and the Germans," said Kharazi. "No one knows where Arad is and in which country he is," Kharazi said, adding that Nasrallah is determined to try find out what happened to Arad. In return for satisfactory information on Arad, Israel would release Samir Kantar, Lebanon's longest-held prisoner in Israel. (Naharnet-AP)

Posted by 40-Tactical on Saturday, February 07, 2004 | Permalink

Geagea in 'Excellent Shape'

Lebanon's State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum says LF commander Samir Geagea is in "perfect physical shape" in prison at the Defense Ministry compound in Yarze, An Nahar reported on Friday. Addoum spoke after agreeing to a request by the archbishop of the Maronite community in Australia, Aad Abi Karam, to visit Geagea in prison. "He undergoes regular physical checkups. He is in excellent shape and I have met all his requests in this sphere," Addoum said of Geagea, who is serving combined jail terms totaling 120 years. Addoum revealed that Geagea asked about two months ago for scanner tests and they were performed on him at the military hospital. "The outcome of that checkup was very good." Geagea then demanded that the same tests be conducted on him at Sacre Cœur hospital, which was done and the outcome was identical to that of the military hospital, Addoum said. Geagea maintains constant contact with his lawyers, relatives and wife "who visit him at least four times a week," Addoum said in his first public statement about Geagea's improved prison conditions.

Taken from Naharnet

Posted by 40-Tactical on Friday, February 06, 2004 | Permalink

Audio & Video

The media files have been moved to our new server. We now have a 100GB download bandwidth compared to the 65GB we had before.

Posted by 40-Tactical on Thursday, February 05, 2004 | Permalink

Lebanese Forces Media

Today I received an email from our media webspace provider "AN Hosts". We have 7 days to move our media files to a new server since our bandwidth consumption was too much for their servers. Incase you receive an error in the next few days while trying to download a media file, its because we are in the process of moving them to a bigger server. This move will not affect the main LF.com site.

Posted by 40-Tactical on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 | Permalink

Israel Urges End to "Syria's Occupation of Lebanon"

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom has called on the international community to put an end to the "Syrian occupation" of Lebanon. Because of Islam's Adha feast holidays, there was no comment from either Lebanon or Syria on Shalom's statement. But fiery responses are expected from the two Arab countries once holidays end on Wednesday. "Since 1976, Syria has been occupying Lebanon and stealing its resources and it is time for the world to order it to leave," Shalom told the Israeli cabinet. He called on "the countries of the free world to start a diplomatic campaign" to force a withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and said he had raised the issue with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

His comments came just days after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened Hizbullah with an unprecedented response if the Party of God, which is backed by Syria and Iran, took any renewed action against Israel. He was specifically referring to threats by Hizbullah to kidnap more Israeli soldiers in the wake of a German-brokered prisoner swap on Thursday should the second stage of the operation fail to win freedom of Lebanon's longest-held prisoner in Israel, Samir Kantar. (AFP-Naharnet)

Posted by 40-Tactical on Tuesday, February 03, 2004 | Permalink