Yearbook 2007
Lebanon. During the year, Lebanon fell deeper into political chaos. At least six people were killed in riots in connection with demonstrations in January. The protesters, loyal to the Shiite Muslim Hizbullah guerrilla, demanded that the government resign under the Western-friendly Fouad Siniora. In April, Parliament’s President Nabih Berri, a Syrian-friendly Shiite Muslim, locked out government members of parliament and refused to call for a vote on the plans for an international tribunal regarding the murder of the country’s former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005. Siniora asked the UN to set up the tribunal anyway and in May, the UN Security Council voted through Resolution 1757, which laid the foundation for the tribunal. The murders of Western-friendly politicians continued. MP Walid Eido was killed on June 13 by a car bomb in Beirut and his colleague Antoine Ghanem in the same way on September 19.
- According to abbreviationfinder: LE is the 2-letter acronym for the country of Lebanon.
According to CountryAAH, Beirut is the capital city of Lebanon. A power struggle ensued during the fall around the presidential post. Parliament failed to elect a new president after Syria-friendly Emile Lahoud, who had been in office for nine years, the last three an extension of the originally six-year term. According to the constitution, the post is reserved for a Christian Maronite, but the Maronites, like the country, were divided into Syrian and Western friends. The presidential vote required that two-thirds of the members were present, which the Syrian-friendly members prevented by boycott. The vote had to be postponed time and time again, and when Lahoud’s term expired on November 24, he resigned without a successor being elected. The concern was great that the country would be thrown into civil war that could develop into a war through agents between the United States and countries such as Iran and Syria. In December, the parties agreed on a compromise candidate, Army chief Michel Suleiman, but he could not be appointed because the Syrian critics set the conditions for greater influence over government work. By New Year, the situation was still locked.
On December 12, Brigadier General Francois Hajj was assassinated, tipped to succeed Suleiman as Army Chief. He was no outspoken Syrian critic and the background to the murder was uncertain. One possibility was that it was an attempt by Syrian friends to join the army that was considered to be the country’s only stable force. Another possibility was that it was a revenge for the summer’s four-month-long offensive against the Sunni Islamist Fatah al-Islam guerrilla in and around the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared in northern Lebanon. The offensive, led by Hajj, claimed over 400 lives – 222 rebels, 160 government soldiers, 42 civilians and at least two Red Cross workers. 40,000 refugees were forced away. Fatah al-Islam’s leader Shaker al-Abssi managed to escape.
The fighting flared up in Tripoli again in 2014. In March, 30 were killed and 175 injured. In October, 42 were killed and 100 injured. At the same time, Syrian Islamists were increasingly fighting with Hezbollah inside Lebanon. Often in the Bekaa Valley near the border with Syria, where Islamists attacked Hezbollah records. The bloodiest battle took place in October, killing 16 Islamists and 8 Hezbollah soldiers.
The head of the Lebanese intelligence service, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said in November that Lebanon was facing two equal threats: Israel and the Islamists in al-Nusra and IS. He continued: “Israel and the Islamists have similar goals: civil war in Lebanon”. Ibrahim did not hide the fact that Lebanon has intelligence that Israel and the Islamists are working closely on the achievement of this goal.
At the end of 2014, there were DKK 1.3 million. registered Syrian refugees in the country, corresponding to a population increase of more than 30%. In addition, some 450,000 unregistered refugees came. Therefore, from January 1, 2015, the Lebanese authorities imposed visa coercion on Syrian nationals. Lebanon had received only limited support from the outside world, and not at all from Denmark, which for more than a decade had had as its main parole that: “refugees must gather in the surrounding areas”. Denmark was otherwise one of the countries that, with its support for one of the parties to the war, had contributed to the enormous problem.
In January 2015, 9 people were killed in a cafe and 30 injured by a suicide bomber in an Alawite district of Beirut. The Syrian al-Nusra Front subsequently assumed responsibility.
Israeli combat helicopters in January 2015 attacked a convoy in Syria near the Israeli border, killing 5 senior Hezbollah members and one Iranian general. The purpose was both to support the friends of Israel on the other side of the border: the al-Nusra front, and to provoke Hezbollah to attack Israel. Israel wanted to start a new war against Lebanon to get revenge for its military defeat in 2006, while at the same time withdrawing Hezbollah forces from Syria to facilitate the advancement of Islamists.
On January 23, IS conducted an attack on the military base in Baalbek. The Lebanese military was subsequently in the 16 hour battle with IS units. It cost 8 soldiers life and 40 IS partisans. The month before, a military column fell into an ambush in the same area, killing 6 soldiers. Military intelligence sources estimate that IS and al-Nusra had 3,000 partisans in the border area against Lebanon, IS’s aim is also to include Lebanon in its caliphate. IS conducted military attacks on the Lebanese military to test it, partly to get its sympathizers as northern Lebanon intensifies its own attacks on the military – triggering a civil war.
Lebanon weather in March, April and May
Average daily temperatures between 21 ° C and 28 ° C can be expected over the next three months. In Beirut, it gets warmest in May, while March is noticeably cooler.
Do you want to go on a beach holiday? The water temperatures are in March, April and May 17-21 ° C. This is good weather for a great time on the beach and in the water.
You can expect around 9 days of rainfall in March, around 5 days in April and around 2 days in May.
In the period from March to May, the sun shines an average of 6 to 10 hours a day. The sunniest weather in Beirut is in May, but with less sun you will have to get by in March.