BEIRUT: A Lebanese soldier was killed and four civilian women injured in separate incidents Thursday, as Hillary Clinton voiced her concerns with President Michel Sleiman that civil strife could follow indictments in the United Nations probe into the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The soldier, named locally as Major Abdo Jasser, died when his army vehicle came under fire in an operation against a deserting officer in the Bekaa Valley, east Lebanon. Another soldier was injured in the incident. “A major was martyred and one of our soldiers injured during a raid in the town of Majdal Anjar in an attempt to find a deserter who had sought refuge there,” said an army source, speaking anonymously in line with military regulations. Jasser died in an area notorious for drug trafficking, with several rival gangs acting with importunity in a bid to cash in on Lebanon's lucrative marijuana and heroin trades. In a separate incident, four women were hurt in a rocket attack in the northern port of Tripoli, a city divided along sectarian lines for several decades. “A rocket hit the roof of a building in Jabal Mohsen, wounding four women,” an army spokesman said, without elaborating. The predominately Alawite Jabal Mohsen and neighboring Sunni-majority Bab al-Tebbaneh have seen several deadly altercations in recent years as fermenting religious resentment is allowed to fester amid poor coverage by security forces. The International Crisis Group, in its latest Lebanon report, warned that the two neighborhoods had begun to resemble a lightening rod for similar sectarian antipathy replicated throughout the country. Army Commander Jean Kahwaji warned last week that the military was poised to crack down on violence involving weapons as Lebanon nervously awaits indictments from the UN tribunal set up to find the assassins of Hariri, who was killed in a 2005 car bomb attack. The US State Department said that Clinton had reaffirmed Washington's commitment to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in a phone call conversation late Wednesday. Clinton “reconfirmed the importance to the United States of Lebanon's stability and independence and to building strong state institutions through our security and economic assistance programs,” a State Department release said. Clinton also stressed that Washington “fully endorses” UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's remarks that the “tribunal's efforts must go forward without interference,” it added. The STL has ratcheted up activities in recent days, including the organization of a tour of court facilities for Lebanese journalists. Preliminary reports from The Hague suggest that the investigation will target individuals, not political entities, although it remains to be seen what effect arrest warrants will have on Lebanon's fragile calm, with many anticipating Hizbullah members to be implicated.
