Lebanese people and journalists inspect the damage at a private residence where one of two rockets exploded in Baabda yesterday.
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army launched a search operation yesterday, hours after two rockets fired from an unknown location exploded metres outside the presidential palace, the military said.
The attack came amid high tensions in Lebanon, fanned by the conflict in neighbouring Syria, now in its third year. “After the explosions... in the area of Yarzeh (in Baabda east of Beirut), the army has launched a search operation in the area,” the army said.
A security source said the search focused on a pine forest in Sahramun, some 10km east of Beirut. The military said the explosions were caused by “two 107 mm rockets”, and that it is “carrying out a search operation in the areas from which (they) might have been launched.”
Witnesses at the scene said one of the two rockets struck some 100 metres from the presidential palace in Baabda, a high-security area that is also home to several embassies. The forest is located in an area controlled by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who in a statement yesterday pledged support to President Michel Sleiman. “We will continue to support the president of the republic who is taking patriotic, responsible and courageous positions,” Jumblatt said in a statement.
Sleiman meanwhile appealed for calm. “However many rocket messages are sent to us, no one can change the foundations of our patriotism, or our belief in freedom and truth,” Sleiman said in a statement.
“Our belief in national unity (will) push away from our country the impact of what is happening around us in the region,” the president added, in a reference to Syria. Although Lebanon is officially neutral in Syria’s war, the small Mediterranean country is split over the revolt against President Bashar Al Assad.
Afp
