A border erased

ENAR

The deterioration of security along Lebanon’s northern border from Arida on the Mediterranean to Masharih Al Qaa in the east presents the Lebanese army with an insurmountable challenge. The western half of the border, particularly a cluster of mainly Sunni villages between Abboudiyah and Dabbabiyah, has come under regular Syrian army shellfire since last summer. These villages are supportive of the Syrian opposition. Some stretches of the border have become de facto safe havens for Syrian rebels who use the area to rest and to plan and launch infiltrations of Syrian territory. The Syrian army shelling, which occurs mostly at night, is intended to interdict infiltrating rebel forces as well as collectively punish the local Lebanese for supporting the opposition. On the eastern half of the northern border, in the Shia areas running from the frontier village of Qasr to Hermel, 10 kilometers to the south, the local population has