US ambassador refuses to comment on the US surveillance in Lebanon

The US ambassador to Lebanon David Satterfield on Tuesday refused to comment on statements made by the former Lebanese Defence Minister Muhsin Dalloul on that the US is using Lebanon as a regional monitoring center to serve Israeli interests and that the surveillance equipment has been long used by the US.

Zahle member of Parliament Khalil Hrawi criticized the accusations made by Dalloul against the US in accusing it of tapping telephone calls of local politicians. He recommended the former defense minister be more accurate about such statements because as he said they were "very risky."

The Lebanese Defence Minister Ghazi Zeiter said commenting on Dalloul's statements" regardless to the US biased policy to Israel, I wonder why there has been silence all this time over these dangerous information, especially as the Defense Minister Dalloul was on top of his power in being able to dismantle the equipment and obstructing its role in the due time, then."

In a statement to the AFP, the former Lebanese defense minister said that the equipment was " first installed by 1983 by the multinational force that included US, French, British and Italian troops at the height of the civil war'. He added that the equipment was installed in 1983 on Mount Sannine in 1984 and then after the departure of the multinational force, it was moved to another location." This new location is said to be in the Hazmeyah area.