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QAA, Lebanon: Lebanese Christian women hold weapons as residents of this Christian village near Lebanon’s border with war-ravaged secure the area yesterday after two waves of suicide bombings struck the village, killing and wounding several people. —AFP Lebanon fearing more attacks Interior minister says attackers came from Syria, not camps

BEIRUT/QAA, Lebanon: The Lebanese Local authorities imposed curfews Show of Force government warned yesterday of a on Syrian refugees in the area following “The whole village is mobilizing. heightened terrorist threat after eight sui- the attacks. The Lebanese army said it Everyone - men and women - are sit- cide bombers targeted a Christian village had mounted dawn raids on Syrian ting in front of their homes to protect at the border with Syria, the latest refugee camps, detaining 103 people them after the terror that we lived yes- spillover of its conflict into Lebanon. The for being illegally present in the coun- terday,” said local official Mansur Saad. village of Qaa was targeted on Monday in try. The majority of Syrian refugees have One man with silver-grey hair and clad two waves of suicide attacks that killed no legal status in Lebanon due to the in a black vest poured himself a small five people. The first group of bombers complications and costs of obtaining or cup of coffee, his assault rifle lying in attacked before dawn and the second lat- renewing residency rights under rules his lap. Several women strolled er at night, two of them blowing them- imposed by the Lebanese government, through the street and posed in front selves up near a church. aid agencies say. of cameras, smiling and gingerly carry- Security officials believe Islamic State In Qaa, residents armed with assault ing weapons. “We haven’t been scared militants were behind the attack. There rifles fanned out in the streets for several or terrified like that in our whole lives,” has been no claim of responsibility. In ref- hours yesterday, citing the need to pro- said resident Yola Saad. “All the guys erence to the number of attackers, the tect the area. They later dispersed when from the village came out with their Lebanese government said the attack the army asked them to go home. The guns to protect their neighborhoods,” and the “unfamiliar way” it was carried head of the Qaa local council had on she added. out represented a new phase of “con- Monday night urged residents to shoot Salam urged residents not to take frontation between the Lebanese state anyone suspicious. Security sources said up arms and to leave the military work and evil terrorism”. Prime Minister Hezbollah deployed dozens of armed to the security forces. In Baalbek, an Tammam Salam “expressed his fear that men in nearby villages to help secure the eastern city known for its ancient ruins, what happened in Qaa is the start f a new area. “We are not leaving for sure, we are soldiers “carried out raids in the refugee wave of terrorist operations in different staying here ... we are not afraid. We are camp... and arrested 103 Syrians who areas of Lebanon,” Information Minister not leaving our land,” Maher Rizk, a cafe were on Lebanese territory illegally,” an Ramzi Jreij said in televised comments owner, said. army statement said. Lebanon is host to after a cabinet meeting. Qaa lies on a main road linking the more than one million Syrian refugees, Sunni Islamist militants have repeated- Syrian town of Al-Qusayr to Lebanon’s roughly a quarter of the small ly struck in Lebanon since the eruption of eastern Bekaa valley. Its 3,000 residents Mediterranean country’s population. the war in neighboring Syria, where the are predominantly Christian, but the Hezbollah has set up informal powerful Lebanese Shiite group Masharia Al-Qaa district is home to Sunni checkpoints along the road to Baalbek Hezbollah is fighting in support of Muslims and some 30,000 Syrian area “to search cars,” a Hezbollah official President Bashar Al-Assad. Interior refugees live in a makeshift camp on the told AFP.. Suicide blasts in the area have Minister Nohad Machnouk, speaking from edge of the village. “The army has typically targeted checkpoints or mili- Qaa, said most of the attackers had come deployed a large force to Masharia Al-Qaa tary installations and rarely included from inside Syria, and not refugee camps and is carrying out widespread searches more than one attacker. In Aug 2014, hosting Syrian refugees who number in the displacement camps, looking for the army clashed with the IS and Al- more than 1 million in Lebanon according weapons or wanted people,” the state Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. National News Agency reported. in the border town of Arsal. —AFP France charges Assad uncle with corruption

PARIS: Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s uncle, suspected of -led uprising, and killed between 10,000 using ill-gotten gains to build a real estate empire in France, and 25,000 civilians, according to . He has been charged with corruption, a judicial source said yes- denies responsibility for the massacre. He was forced into terday. Rifaat al-Assad, 78, who commanded Syria’s notorious exile in 1984 for trying to overthrow his older brother, the internal security forces in the 1970s and early 1980s, was late Syrian dictator Hafez Al-Assad. Then French president charged on June 9 with receiving embezzled funds and tax Francois Mitterrand invited Rifaat to France, awarding him fraud, the source told AFP. the Legion d’Honneur two years later. In the probe, headed by prominent political graft buster French investigators have told AFP that Rifaat has since Renaud van Ruymbeke, investigators estimated that Rifaat divided his time between homes in Paris, London and the and his family amassed 90 million euros ($100 million) worth southern Spanish resort city of Marbella. Sherpa claims of real estate in France, mainly through companies registered Rifaat’s fortune was stolen during his time at the heart of the in Luxembourg, between 1984 and 1988. The properties Syrian regime. Syrian foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, include a chateau and stud farm north of Paris, two man- who also resides in France, told investigators that Hafez Al- sions, two apartment blocks and a plot of land in the French Assad gave his brother some $300 million in 1984 to get rid capital as well as offices in southern Lyon. of him. Of that, $100 million was in the form of a loan from Rifaat, who has four wives, told investigators he “had the Libyan government, a source close to the probe told AFP. nothing” when he left Syria, having always given his wages away to the poor, according to a source close to the investi- Saudi Interest Questioned gation. His lawyers declined to comment when contacted by The Assad family claims the fortune was the result of gifts AFP. Rifaat has been ordered to remain in France except for from wealthy Saudi supporters, including former king travel to Britain for medical treatment, according to Sherpa, Abdullah, with whom he shared a love of horse-racing. Van an activist group that represents victims of financial crime Ruymbeke, whose high-profile cases have included the tax and lodged complaints against him in 2013 and 2014. fraud trial of France’s former budget minister Jerome Rifaat headed Syria’s notorious internal security forces at Cahuzac, has said Rifaat has provided proof only of a $10 mil- the time of the 1982 massacre, which crushed a lion gift from Abdullah in 1984, the source told AFP. —AFP