Lebanese soldier defects to al-Qaeda in Syria: video

EU freezes assets of 2 firms accused of supplying oil to Syria

BEIRUT, July 23, (RTRS): A Lebanese soldier has defected to an al-Qaeda group in neighbouring Syria, in the first such incident, in protest at what he said was the injustice against Sunni Muslims in his country.

A Lebanese security source said the army considered the Sunni Muslim soldier a deserter but there was no official comment from the army, which groups soldiers from all sects.

Security sources said Atef Saadeddine, 23, went missing on Tuesday while on duty at a checkpoint near the Syrian border.

On Wednesday, Saadeddine appeared in a YouTube video, which showed him wearing his army uniform with the black flag of the al-Nusra Front, alQaeda’s affiliate in Syria, in the background and two guns propped up against a wall.

“I am the defected soldier Atef Saadeddine from the 8th division,” he said, showing a military identification card with his picture on it, issued by the Lebanese Ministry of Defence.

The video ended with him embracing five masked armed men who all kissed his forehead as a welcome sign.

The Syrian civil war has aggravated deep-rooted sectarian tension in Lebanon, with Sunni Muslims supporting rebels against President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah fighting alongside Assad’s army.

Saadeddine said Sunnis were facing “harassment” by the army, which he accused of working under the command of Hezbollah, and carrying out arrests and raids at the group’s request.

He accused Hezbollah of killing Sunni Muslims in Lebanon and Syria.

In the past months, there has been a rise in attacks by armed men believed to be Sunni militants against Lebanese army soldiers and checkpoints, killing several of them mainly in north and east Lebanon.

The European Union on Wednesday froze the assets of two oil- trading firms accused of organising covert shipments of oil to Syria.

They were among nine organisations and three people added to the EU’s Syria sanctions list, published in the bloc’s Official Journal. Also listed were branches of the Syrian Defence Ministry.

The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been blacklisted by Western powers for its role in the country’s three-year civil war, which has killed at least 150,000 people, according to one monitoring group.

The two oil-trading firms were Beirutbased Oceans Petroleum Trading, also called Overseas Petroleum Trading or Overseas Petroleum Co, and Tri Oceans Trading, an Egyptian firm. Their assets in the 28-nation EU will be frozen.

Both are accused of “providing support to the Syrian regime and benefiting from the regime by organising covert shipments of oil to the Syrian regime,” the Official Journal said.

Syria urged a newly appointed international mediator to be “objective and honest” as he seeks an end to the country’s civil war, Syrian state television reported on Wednesday.

It was Damascus’s first reaction to the appointment of Staffan de Mistura by United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon two weeks ago, shortly after President Bashar al-Assad was re-elected in a June 3 poll.

A UN official for 30 years, he replaces Lakhdar Brahimi, who stepped down in May, frustrated by global deadlock over how to resolve the more than three-year conflict.

“We hope that he will take an objective and honest approach based on international law ... particularly the respect of the national sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs,” the channel said in a newsflash.

Citing a letter sent to the United Nations by the foreign ministry, it said Syria had also called on Mistura to have “respect for the choices of the Syrian people”.

Mistura, a dual citizen of Italy and Sweden and a former UN special envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq, faces a conflict which has killed at least 160,000, displaced millions and enflamed sectarian tensions across the Middle East.