The Cedar Revolution continues

If ever you needed to see that the winds of change were still blowing in Lebanon then this report from the Lebanon Daily Star proves it:

BEIRUT: Four Palestinians arrested over the weekend in northern Lebanon said they were planning to carry out military attacks against Israeli targets along the Gaza-Egyptian coast, Al-Hayat reported Thursday. The Palestinians were detained Saturday, a day after the Lebanese Army thwarted their attempt to leave the northern coast of the country in a ferryboat packed with weapons and explosives, a high-ranking official told the London-based daily.

He said the Palestinians confessed they belonged to Osbat Al-Ansar, an Islamist armed group based in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, near the southern port city of Sidon. They also said a key figure in the group from the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in the north had planned the unsuccessful operation and provided the boat. They were planning to attack Israeli targets along the coastal strip between Gaza and the Egyptian city of Al-Arish. The army reported the arrest of the four Palestinians a day after the Lebanese Navy chased them off the coast of Nahr al-Bared and forced them to abandon their boat.

The chase would not have taken place as long as Syria remained firmly at the helm of Lebanese governance. The article goes on to highlight what the Osbat al-Ansar group did to incur the wrath of the Lebanese.

Osbat al-Ansar came under the spotlight in the mid-nineties when three of its members killed Sheikh Nizar al-Halabi, the head of the pro-Syrian Association of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, better known as Al-Ahbash. The three were executed, but Osbat al-Ansar leader Abdel-Karim al-Saadi, who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Mohjen, was sentenced to death in absentia. He is believed to be the mastermind of the murder. It is widely believed he is holed up in Ain al-Hilweh, which is controlled by Palestinian armed groups. Lebanese authorities do not enter the camp.

Perhaps, one day in a future nearer than one could have reasonably surmised a year ago, the day will come when the Lebanese Army will do what even the Syrians never would do, and enter the camps to disarm the Palestinian armed groups that have long wrecked havoc on Lebanese society.