Saudi Letter Seeks Lebanese Intelligence Cooperation against Hizbullah Arms http://www.english.moqawama.org/essaydetails.php?eid=20659&cid=274

Local Editor Al-Akhbar Lebanese newspaper Monday unveiled that "the Lebanese state had received a letter from Saudi Arabia, asking for Lebanon's intelligence cooperation with it." "This intelligence cooperation includes several countries led by the US," the letter clarified and pointed out that "the objective of the cooperation is to monitor the entry of weapons from Syria to Lebanon."However, the paper warned that "the implicit goal of such intelligence effort is Hizbullah's arms."It further mentioned that "the demand arrived to Lebanon through a letter sent by the Saudi Foreign Ministry to the Lebanese Embassy in Riyadh."The KSA's government, in the context of its review to the future events in Syria and risks of leakage of any kind of weapons from Syrian territory to neighboring countries and then its access Saudi Arabia, hopes to cooperate with the Lebanese government in exchanging intelligence information of about the subject," the Saudi letter read.Al-Ahkbar viewed that "such demand would have technically been understood if it had been limited to monitor the smuggling of non-conventional weapons.""However, the Saudi letter used the term "any weapon"," the paper mentioned and noted that it didn't specify the type of forces, which it fears to be the weapons receiver."It highlighted that "the letter just indicated the Lebanese territories as the receiving region.""What the Saudi letter demands from Lebanon is to join the Western-"Israeli" intelligence effort that existed since the pre-Syrian crisis," al-Akhbar stated. The paper revealed that the real aim " is goal to monitor the line of arm supply of the Lebanese resistance [Hizbullah] in Lebanon through Syria.""The new indication in this demand is the attempt to establish a common intelligence mechanism with the Lebanese government to monitor the supply of resistance through Syria, under the title that Damascus has turned to a failing state and there is a regional fear of smuggling of weapons to non-disciplined terrorist organization," the paper said. Al-Akhbar" stated that "in case Lebanon agreed to this idea, it is not unlikely that this procedure is dubs Hizbullah as a "terrorist organization that benefits from the smuggling of weapons as a result of Syrian chaos."