Akkar, Lebanon - The people of the Akkar region, north Lebanon, were busy Sunday discussing the veracity of local news indicating that the United States may be planning to build a military base in their area.
Worries increased after former pro-Syrian Member of Parliament (MP) Nasser Kandil appeared on television Sunday revealing a document he claimed was issued by the Bureau of 'Dangerous Zones' which is affiliated with the US Department of Defense.
Kandil said the document announced the starting of 'preparatory construction to set up a military base for NATO and US forces in the area of Qeliat' in northern Lebanon.
'Such a base if it is built ... will bring problems to a region already fragile and full of Sunni fundamentalist movements,' said local recident Nimr Alloush, referring to the summer conflict between Sunni fundamentalist movement Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp.
The fifteen-week long battles at Nahr al-Bared claimed the lives of 170 soldiers and more than 220 militants, as well as displaced the camp's 40,000 Palestinian refugees.
According to military expert Amin Hoteit, the reported US plan aims to set up six military bases - three in Iraq, one in Jordan, one in Saudi Arabia and one in Lebanon.
It is believed that the Lebanese government is going to approve the base, allegedly to be named the US-Lebanese Centre for Rehabilitation of the Army.
'This US project if it is established will bring more problems. ... Probably every group in Lebanon would oppose it,' Hoteit said.
The uproar started after US Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Eric Edelman visited Lebanon and spoke of a 'strategic partnership' with Lebanon's army in an interview aired on Lebanese television last week. Edelman did not mention the building of a military base.
But according to a report in Beirut newspaper As-Safir published last week, Edelman - who during his visit met with Premier Fouad Seniora, Defence Minister Elias Murr and Lebanese Army Commander General Michel Suleiman - not only discussed the Lebanese Army's training and equipment needs but also put forward a draft agreement that would see US naval, air and land bases set up on Lebanese territory.
Information Minister Ghazi Aridi categorially denied the As-Safir article, saying it was 'an attempt to create a rift between the Lebanese Army and the government by those who stood against the army during the battle for Nahr al-Bared.'
According to the reports the base is to be established at Qleiat, a small abandoned airport.
Most of residents in the area were wary of speaking to the press but some living near the airport said several US officials had visited the facility in the past few months.
Independent military experts say the military base project was orchestrated by the office of the US Secretary of Defence to counter Russian bases in northern Syria.
'The US administration wants the Qleiat airport as a location because it lies 22 air miles from northern Syria's Tartus naval base and also the Russian Mediterranean Black Sea fleet's command centre,' said one military expert who requested anonymity.
In 2006, Russia announced plans to set up a naval base in Syria in a move that would dramatically increase Moscow's presence in West Asia.
Russia has dredged the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russian Navy has had a maintenance station since Soviet times.
If the US base is built, it will be the first American military establishment in the country since 1983 when then US president Ronald Reagan pulled US troops out following a suicide bombing that killed more than 280 US marines.
Until the reports are cleared, people in the Akkar region will continue to fear such 'a mystery military base' in their area.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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