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Jumblat Lashes out at Assad, Says Hizbullah Should be Integrated into the Regular Army
Druze leader Walid Jumblat lashed out at Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday for failing to open the front in the occupied Golan Heights and said the Lebanese army is deploying in the south in line with an "ambiguous" formula.
"Did anyone prevent you from opening the front on the Golan? No, but it is easier to use the Lebanese front," he told a press conference.

Jumblat hailed the unprecedented army deployment in southern Lebanon, but warned that "dangers could be looming ... and Lebanon will remain a battleground" for regional conflicts unless Hizbullah is integrated into the regular army and respects the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel.

"Why can't instead the army be responsible for holding the balance of power? Why can't the rockets be under the command of the army?" he said.

He said the army's deployment south of the Litani river was in line with an "ambiguous and unclear" formula because the military does not have the mandate to disarm Hizbullah fighters there.

He said in 2000 there was Lebanese "consensus" when Hizbullah liberated southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation. But added that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah did not consult anyone before kidnapping two Israeli soldiers on July 12 2006. The capture unleashed an Israeli offensive on Lebanon that lasted for more than one month.

Jumblat also said that he believed the U.S. interest was primarily Israel's security.

"We don't want Lebanon -- or south Lebanon specifically -- to be a testing ground of pre-emptive wars by America and Israel against Iran and Syria or the other way around," he told reporters.

Naharnet