Border Backlash

The story starts in Masnaa, at the Lebanese border station. The line of trucks begins a few hundred meters east of the Masnaa crossing and continues for the next 8 kilometers to the Syrian customs post at Jdeidet. The trucks are double-parked bumper to bumper along the highway snaking through the barren mountains of the Anti-Lebanon, leaving a single lane for smaller vehicles to pass by. Drivers escape the blistering heat sitting in the shade of their lorries or beneath small trees on the side of the highway, drinking tea and chatting. This was the picture for most of July, since Syrian border inspections overnight slowed down to snail pace. “Instead of 150 to 200 trailers per day, the inspectors let only five or six pass,” said Yacoub Kaissi, vice president of the Lebanese shipping syndicate. There are also numbers in circulation that suggest a slightly higher entrance rate, of