(Adnkronos) – US envoy Tom Barrack cut short a visit to southern Lebanon, facing protests at two scheduled stops on his tour against US pressure for Hezbollah’s disarmament. The National News Agency (NNA), the Lebanese state news agency, reported that Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, arrived by helicopter at a Lebanese army barracks in Marjayoun, near the border, with soldiers deployed in the area. He then canceled planned stops in nearby Khiam, hard hit by Israel during the latest hostilities with Hezbollah, and in the coastal city of Tyre.
A spokesman told AFP that the US embassy does not comment on officials’ schedules for security reasons, while a correspondent for the French news agency in Khiam saw a group of residents demonstrating against the envoy. Some waved Hezbollah flags or held photos of fighters killed in the conflict, others stood on a Star of David drawn on the road in blue, near the Arabic words “America is the Great Satan” and “Barrack is an animal” written in English. The last sentence was a reference to the US envoy’s comments during a press conference in Beirut on Tuesday, when he told reporters to “behave civilly” and threatened to leave if the situation became “chaotic, like animalistic,” phrases that sparked outrage in the country.
Bilal Kashmar, an official with the union of southern municipalities, said dozens of people demonstrated in Tyre today against Barrack’s planned visit and Washington’s “partisan policies.” Under heavy US pressure and amid fears of an expansion of Israeli military action, the Lebanese government this month tasked the army with drawing up a plan by the end of the year to disarm Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed group, which enjoys strong support in the south, has emerged severely weakened from more than a year of hostilities, including two months of open warfare with Israel that largely ended with a ceasefire in November.
