Lahoud and the Israeli threats to Lebanon
The Lebanese President Emil Lahoud has unveiled that the US ambassador in Beirut David Satter- Field told him after the capturing of the three Israeli soldiers at the occupied farms of Shebaa an Israeli warning to strike several area in Lebanon and to convert Lebanon into " hell" if it does not release the soldiers within four hours.
The London- based al-Sharq al-Awsat daily issued on Saturday quoted a source close to the Lebanese President's rejection of the Israeli warning and that he called for releasing the Lebanese hailed in the Israeli prisons.
Lahoud said that he at the same day received a " calm " telephone call from the US secretary of state Madeleine Albright which had no tone of threat she used to have during her telephone call with President Lahoud at the eve of the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon in May.
During this telephone call Albright did not talks about the question of the Israeli soldiers but she hoped from Lahoud to control the situation on the borders and to prevent the Palestinians from approaching it, noting hat several Palestinians fired explosives on the Israeli soldiers.
Lahoud stressed to Albright Lebanon's care to maintain security and stability on the borders, noting that the Israelis were the ones who opened fire against the Palestinians and killed three of them.
Lahoud considered the criticism made by certain Lebanese leadership against the Syrian presence in lebanon are evoked from outside the country with the aim to dismember the Syrian and Lebanese tracks so as to single Lebanon out, as well as Syria and to perpetuate the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.
Lahoud in this regard indicated what took place at the recent summit conference which was held in Cairo where coordination and cooperation between Syria and Lebanon was the focal point of interest for several Arab leaders who joked President Lahoud and President Bashar al-Assad as they were always seen together outside the conference hall as well as their bilateral sideline meetings even heading to their two residences in one car. President Lahoud replied one of the Arab leaders who gave his notice on this intimate relations saying smilingly " should all Arabs are like us ( al-Assad and Lahoud) we would have governed the world."