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Clashes broke out between Syrian troops and a “terrorist cell” in the Yarmuk camp, an area heavily populated by Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of Damascus, KUNA reported Oct. 9. Private Syrian TV network Dunia reported that one of the militants was wearing an explosives belt. Though details of the clashes remain scarce, such incidents in many ways were expected given the current Syrian agenda for Lebanon.
Syria has been steadily building up a large troop presence along its northern border with Lebanon and more recently along its western border with Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Despite Syrian claims of the buildup’s being a response to drug smuggling and terrorism, the increase in troops probably is part of Syrian preparations to reassert its physical presence in Lebanon, where Syrian influence has historically been entrenched.
As Stratfor previously discussed, the Syrian strategy appears to involve gradually building the case for a military intervention in Lebanon by portraying Damascus as a victim of terrorism emanating from Lebanon. Many of the so-called Salafists milling about in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli and in Palestinian refugee camps in fact are on the payroll of Syria’s intelligence and security apparatus, leaving Damascus with no shortage of militant assets to cause trouble on both sides of the border to give Syria the justification it seeks to intervene and “restore order.”
The Syrians will bide their time in pursuing this strategy, waiting to see what comes out of the U.S. elections and the political imbroglio in Israel. Just as former Syrian President Hafez al Assad carefully and methodically built a case for military intervention in Lebanon in 1976 — a move sanctioned by both Israel and the United States — the late president’s son, Bashar, seems to be adopting the same strategy of gradually implementing his current plan to intervene in Lebanon.
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