Only In Lebanon

‘Buns and Guns’ fast food eatery opens in

Beirut

By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 26, 3:07 PM ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon – At the “Buns and Guns,” the chefs wear military helmets, the food is wrapped in camouflage paper and the advertising slogan is “a sandwich can kill you.”
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The fast food eatery with a tongue-in-cheek military theme opened three weeks ago in Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs and is drawing in residents proud of the Shiite militant group’s battlefield successes.

Done up like a military outpost, the restaurant is located in the heart of a neighborhood heavily pounded by Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah, which fought the Israeli military to a standstill.

Neatly stacked sandbags cover the exterior, while the inside is festooned with camouflage nets, defused mortar shells and live ammunition. Employees in military uniforms serve meals to the taped sounds of gunfire as “background music.”

“We thought at the beginning that it was a weapons store but later we discovered that it was actually a fast food restaurant,” said customer Amr Nahas as he ordered a “magnum,” a grilled chicken sandwich, with a side order of “grenades” or potato wedges.

“The sandwiches are really delicious,” he added.

The restaurant’s founding comes during a particularly tense period in Lebanese politics. Fighting between supporters of the government and the Hezbollah-led opposition in May killed 81 people and raising fears of a renewed civil war. It ended only after a political deal that gives Hezbollah and its allies a strong portion of a unity government.

But the restaurant’s owners say the military motif has nothing to do with the security situation in Lebanon, but is meant to attract customers.

“The idea came before all the clashes that happened in Lebanon,” co-owner Ali Hamoud told Associated Press Television News on Tuesday. “But in the end, (the fighting) helped in advertising the restaurant.”

While many Lebanese have been sickened by the renewed fighting — including clashes Monday in the north that claimed another eight lives — many in the Hezbollah strongholds of south Beirut express pride in the movement’s strength and gains.

“Establishing a military restaurant is a new fancy idea — there are people who like anything that deals with weapons,” said one employee, who declined to give his name because his boss hadn’t given him permission to speak to the media.

He said the restaurant had no direct connection with Hezbollah. But it could not operate in the heart of Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, where the guerrilla group’s word is law, without its blessing — and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV ran a story about the restaurant, a sign of the movement’s support.

Customers enter the restaurant under a sign bearing the restaurant’s name — in English — and the slogan, “a sandwich can kill you,” a reference to the large portions.

The glossy camouflage menus feature burgers with names like “the mortar” and “the 155 mm howitzer,” while grilled chicken sandwiches can be a “magnum” or a “rocket-propelled grenade.” Lebanon’s most common and popular weapon, the AK-47 Klashnikov assault rifle, is a beefsteak sandwich served in long baguette-style bread.

A pizza topped with peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives, corn and tomatoes is rather disturbingly named Claymore, referring to the devastating anti-personnel mines.

Gunman kills three, commits suicide in Lebanon

intoura, Mount Lebanon – A 32 year old
Lebanese citizen opened fire at construction workers, killing two
Lebanese nationals and one Syrian citizen, before taking his own life
on Friday.

The
Public Relations Division of the Internal Security Forces – Directorate
General issued a statement on Friday afternoon announcing that Riyad
Salim al-Hajj, a 32-year-old Lebanese citizen, opened fire in the Metn
village of Aintoura from within his house at nearby construction
workers using a hunting rifle, killing three people before shooting
himself.

Two Lebanese citizens, Jean Abdo Al-Hajj (born in 1953) and Raymond
Karki (born in 1958), and a Syrian national, Adnan Ahmad Al-Ahmed (born
in 1979), died of the wounds they sustained on Friday.

William Karki (born in 1949), another Lebanese citizen, suffered a
bullet wound in his abdomen and was transferred to the Bhannes
hospital. His condition is stable.

The ISF statement immediately deployed a Bikfaya patrol unit to the
area, in addition to a special undercover unit, which fenced off the
gunman’s house after urging him to surrender and hand in his weapons,
to which he did not comply.

The ISF then used smoke bombs, but Riyad Salim al-Hajj turned the gun on himself. He died Friday.

Army deploys in Tripoli as violence continues

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army stepped into the fray in Tripoli on Monday, after renewed violence between supporters of feuding Lebanese parties defied a cease-fire agreed upon the previous day and brought the casualty count to at least eight dead and 44 wounded during two days of fighting.

Intense clashes involving automatic weapons, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades resumed in the Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen areas of Tripoli on Monday, and involved mostly Sunni March 14 partisans and Alawite members of opposition-affiliated groups.

A security source told The Daily Star on Monday that the intensity of clashes and “reported incidents of sniper fire” forced the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Internal Security Forces (ISF) to halt an initial deployment in the neighborhoods before waiting for “political cover” from local figures.

With both camps trading jabs over the deployment of the LAF in the conflict zones, a well-informed source said that the LAF presence, “while not welcomed enthusiastically, was tolerated in Bab al-Tebbaneh, in contrast to a more difficult move toward Jabal Mohsen.”

At approximately 4:45 p.m. on Monday, the LAF and ISF launched a new push along the Al-Bakkar and Al-Qobbeh roads leading to the neighborhoods. A security source said that the LAF worked to gain the backing of local figures and strip the combatants of any political backing that may have been present and described the strategy on the ground as an attempt to split “hostile areas off from one another” before moving into each region alone.

Also Monday, the LAF command issued a statement saying that it “beefed up the army deployment and strengthened security measures” in areas affected by the fighting after “local religious and political figures” plead for calm and the cessation of armed hostilities. A source close to the matter told The Daily Star that the LAF “will not act merely as a peacekeeping force, but will respond forcibly to all [aggression] in the area.”

Political reactions to the violence coming from local circles and the international community continued to pour in well into Monday evening. President Michel Sleiman was in continual contact with “local figures from North Lebanon, including the mufti of Tripoli, Sheikh Malek al-Shaar, reassuring concerned parties that the military would step in,” according to Central News Agency reports. The report added that the president spent much of Monday “focusing his efforts on bringing about an end to the hostilities in Tripoli.”

Meanwhile, Future Movement chief MP Saad Hariri urged residents of Tripoli to “stand together against attempts to sow civil strife in the city and efforts to explode a volatile situation in one region or another.”

He added that “the city of Tripoli should cooperate with institutions of the state – the ISF and the LAF – which alone have the right to determine and resolve questions of security and authority.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Michel Aoun said Monday that the heavy fighting has surfaced because of “security negligence in the Bekaa and North Lebanon.” The former general added that he had warned against factional arming in North Lebanon, but that he was then accused of “fabricating illusory battles by an official within the Future Movement.”

In related news, Phalange Party leader and former President Amin Gemayel said Monday that “an armed [factional] presence in the [area of] Mount Sannine” has gone unnoticed. He insinuated that those responsible were “a group that kidnapped four youths from the Metn region who were picnicking in an area between the Metn and Kesrouan,” but did not make an outright identification.

Finally, Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir on Monday expressed his “regret and disappointment regarding the incidents occurring in North Lebanon.” Sfeir asked how “the country can improve while each [political grouping] seeks its own interest?”

Israel lobbying against US-Lebanon arms deal

Beirut – Israel is lobbying in the US against the $400 million arms
deal for the Lebanese Army, According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The arms deal between the United States and Lebanon would reportedly include hundreds of anti-tank missiles.

Israeli authorities have stated that recent events in Lebanon,
including Hezbollah’s resurgence in the south, have led them to believe
that the arms transfer could pose a security threat, namely if future
clashes cause government forces to splinter, possibly causing the arms
to fall into the hands of the Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hezbollah.

The Head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau. Amos
Gilad has reportedly held talks recently with officials from the
Pentagon, in order to convey Israeli reservations about the deal,
Haaretz has reported.

The United States is reportedly interested in the deal out of the
belief that it will help the Lebanese Army better deal with the range
of factions in the country, especially Hezbollah.

As a precursor to the weapons deal, the United States has agreed to
help train units of the Lebanese Army and has sent military advisers to
the country.

According to military observers, the Lebanese army badly needs the
proper equipment and training in order for it to maintain law and order
in face of terrorism. Last year the army fought Fatah al Islam
terrorists, an al Qaeda inspired group, for 106 days. It took the army
that long to defeat the terrorists because it was ill equipped, and had
to use creative means to win the battle, such as using helicopters as
bombers. This dangerous technique had never been attempted before.

According to observers, the US has to insist on the deal if it wants
(as it claims) Lebanon to defend its democracy, sovereignty,
independence and freedom. After all, Lebanon is trying to
diplomatically resolve the issue of the Sheba farms, and the arms will
be critical in enabling the Lebanese Army to keep the peace along the
Lebanese-Israeli borders.

Shebaa Farms Lebanon

As hopes rise for a resolution to the Shebaa Farms issue, President
Michel Sleiman has attempted to tie this dispute to progress over the
issue of Hezbollah’s arms. But a breakthrough on Shebaa could still be
years away, and the Lebanese state cannot afford to wait to negotiate a
new relationship with Hezbollah’s militia.

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