By Theodore Shoebat
A secret British military squad built twelve watch towers around the Christian village of Ras Baalbek, and the towers have terrified ISIS from massacring and conquering the village. God bless the British government for this, for any force used to defend the Church is worthy of Heaven’s blessing. I did a whole video on this:
ACCORDING TO A REPORT:
The watchtowers followed a direct appeal from Najib Mikati, the former Lebanese prime minister, to David Cameron on a visit to Downing Street in October 2011.
Tom Fletcher, the British ambassador to Lebanon, said: “David Cameron said to him, very clearly, ‘We are allies. Tell us what you need and we will deliver it’.” Mr Mikati asked for watchtowers, kit and training for his army.The first towers were built to the north of the country and now dot halfway down the eastern border.
Carefully sited, they create “overlapping arcs” of sight. “You can’t imagine what it was like when we got out here first,” says one former officer. “There were a few guys behind some tyres filled with rocks with a 50 cal [machine gun].”
“You have to start security somewhere,” explains a former British officer. “We are not building the Maginot line. People are scared. They’ve all seen the decapitations on YouTube. They know what Isil want to do.”Faris Mansour, a 76-year-old Christian from Ras Baalbek, said that the villagers were grateful for the British watchtowers. “During the time of the crisis, the watchtowers helped to protect us,” he said.
“We were concerned about what was happening in Iraq and Syria. We were watching the news all the time, and we thought the violence would happen here,” he said.
“To understand this area, you need to understand that the border between Syria and Lebanon is a relatively new concept,” said one of the British Training and Advisory Team. “This was a no-man’s land for decades.”
Despite working as fast as possible, the operation has not gone completely to plan, with disaster striking Aarsal, a Sunni village a few miles to the south of Tango 10, in August.
With no effective border, Aarsal found itself being used as a base by fighters from Isil and Jabhat Al-Nusra, an al- Qaeda-associated group based in Syria.
Over the summer, Isil stormed east out of Syria and down the Euphrates river in Iraq towards Baghdad. To the west, they decided to launch a major attack into Aarsal in a formidable operation.The British team, aware that Isil were planning an attack in the area, had battled to complete the towers around Aarsal. The terrorist group’s name — Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — always made it clear that Lebanon was a target.
The tower was not built in time and the town fell to Isil. The Lebanese army retook Aarsal after three days of fighting — 19 Lebanese soldiers were kidnapped and several have since been beheaded in Syria.
Tom Fletcher believes that if Isil had come through the pass to the Christian village of Ras Baalbek, a massacre would have ensued.
There is an irony that Britain is battling to build a border for Lebanon just as the Sykes-Picot line, named after the diplomats who divided Iraq and Syria with a ruler in 1916, was overthrown by Isil.
But for the British team, any concerns come below ensuring the safety of the multi-faith residents of the Bekaa valley.