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Lebanese Brig. Adnan Daoud was ordered arrested Wednesday for appearing in a videotape drinking tea with Israeli soldiers. (AP)
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| By Associated Press August 17, 2006 |
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A Lebanese police commander came face to face with a fellow officer from the enemy ranks Thursday, shortly before his base came under attack and Israeli artillery began flying. But he described the meeting in surprising terms.
"He was very polite with me," Lebanese Interior Ministry Brig. Gen. Adnan Daoud said of his first encounter with an Israeli colonel in this conflict or any other.
It most likely will be the last.
The Israelis videotaped Daoud sipping tea with smiling Israeli soldiers then put it on TV. It was later broadcast on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television and the interior minister ordered Daoud arrested. Lebanon does not recognize Israel and forbids its citizens any contact with Israelis.
Daoud commands a joint police-army force of about 1,000 men, based in Marjayoun, a Christian town about 6 miles from the Israeli border. Israeli troops, part of an armored column that punctured deep into Lebanon last week, ended up on Daoud's doorstep and took over his base last Thursday -- 4 days before a cease-fire took hold.
"They came peacefully up to our gate, asking to speak with me by name," he said.
Daoud described the encounter on the eve of his and other Lebanese forces and others taking up a peacekeeping role in the south of the country. He said his experience with the Israelis was pleasant and professional and even touched on the possibility of future Israeli-Lebanese military relations in the south.
The videotape showed him walking with Israeli soldiers in the base courtyard, something he described in an interview with The Associated Press just hours before his arrest.
"For four hours, I took him on a tour of our base," Daoud said of an Israeli official who introduced himself as Col. Ashaya. "It's the name of someone who guided the Jews in the Bible."
"He was probably on an intelligence mission, and wanted to see if we had any Hezbollah in here," Daoud added.
After their meeting, Ashaya left, Daoud said. An hour later, the bombs started falling.
Four Israeli tanks rolled up to the entrance of the Lebanese barracks, Daoud said, blowing holes in a steel gate and shattering glass in guard houses. Lebanese soldiers did not fire back, and no one was hurt, he said.
But an Associated Press reporter at the scene saw damage that indicated a fierce battle had been waged there.
Shell casings littered the ground both outside and inside the barracks' gate. Windows throughout were shattered. Empty ammunition boxes, a brand used by Lebanese forces, littered the hallways.
Daoud said he wasn't sure whether his counterpart's friendliness was a ruse, or whether the Israelis got their signals crossed and opened fire not knowing Ashaya had been there.
Israeli troops seized the barracks and held Daoud and 350 soldiers for a day before allowing them to leave the occupied zone. Israeli warplanes fired missiles at their convoy as it headed north, killing 7 people. Israel said it was investigating as an accident.
Israel left the base on Tuesday, part of a withdrawal from positions taken in a month of heavy ground fighting.
Daoud said his forces were only lightly armed, and surrendered their weapons when the Israelis demanded. Israeli troops locked the weapons in a room and later blew it up, Daoud said, pointing to the gaping hole and pile of concrete wreckage that used to be a wing of the military base.
"They said, 'We are an occupying army and now you are occupied,"' Daoud recalled another Israeli commander telling him, once he was taken captive and separated from lower-ranking soldiers. "I tried to refuse because they were Israelis and I am Lebanese and they are supposed to be the enemy."
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