Region

BEIRUT — Lebanon's parliament voted on Wednesday to extend its own mandate until 2017 citing security concerns linked to the civil war in neighbouring Syria, but critics including the European Union condemned the move as unconstitutional.

Lebanese politics, long dogged by sectarian divisions, has become deeply deadlocked as the Syrian war exacerbates party rivalries. Lebanon has been without a president since May because feuding lawmakers cannot agree on a candidate.

Ninety-five out of 97 parliamentarians present voted for the extension bill, Lebanon's National News Agency said. It is the second postponement of parliamentary elections, which should originally have taken place in June 2013.

An umbrella group of Lebanese non-governmental groups had urged lawmakers not to extend their mandate, which had been due to expire this month.

Downtown Beirut, where the parliament is located, was locked down by security forces for the vote and protesters hurled tomatoes and eggs at police.

"It is another blow to democracy in Lebanon. Lebanon has a long history of democracy and we are seeing, unfortunately, a political class that is going against the tide of history," said Makram Ouaiss, one of the protest organisers.

The head of Lebanon's Maronite Christian community, Patriarch Beshara Al Rai, called the extension "illegitimate and unconstitutional", according to the National News Agency.

Angelina Eichhorst, head of the EU delegation in Lebanon, said on Twitter that Wednesday was "a sad day in Lebanon's constitutional history".

Political analysts said Lebanese politicians were using the regional uncertainty as an excuse to dodge elections.

"It's very symptomatic of the Lebanese political class. It's a political class that is pretending that it wants to save the country but at the same time violating the constitution," said

Sahar Atrache, a Lebanon analyst for International Crisis Group.

‘Irresponsible’

"Politicians are all in a wait-and-see mode. People are waiting to see how things evolve on the regional level. They are very interesting in protecting their own gain," Atrache told Reuters, branding the extension as "irresponsible".

The fighting in Syria has deepened the sectarian rifts in its much smaller neighbour, with Lebanese Shiite Muslims backing the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad while Sunnis supporting his opponents.

Hardline Islamists have also won a degree of support among Lebanese Sunnis, though the community's leaders say such radical groups have no major backing in Lebanon.

The decision to extend parliament's mandate drew support from lawmakers from all the main groupings.

Lebanon's sectarian divisions have been complicated by the regional rivalry between Shiite Iran and Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia. Without a rapprochement between the two, politicians say decision-making in Lebanon is likely to remain stalled.

A government formed in February with Saudi-Iranian blessing has spared Lebanon a complete political vacuum at the top. But that government has struggled to take even basic decisions. The parliament is barely functioning.

The Syrian conflict has also triggered some of Lebanon's worst violence since its own 1975-90 civil war. There has been several bouts of fighting in the coastal city of Tripoli since the Syria war erupted in 2011 and Sunni Muslim gunmen briefly took over the north eastern town of Arsal this summer.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday ahead of the vote that it would tarnish Lebanon's image as a relatively open and democratic country in an authoritarian region.

"It would be a shame for Lebanon to go down the route of other Arab states where elections are held at the whim of their rulers or not at all," said Nadim Houry, deputy director of Human Rights Watch in the Middle East and North Africa.

"Lebanon should instead play a leading role in political rights and civil liberties for other states in the region."

TEHRAN — Iran's relationship with the United States could soon be redefined by a nuclear agreement, but at a protest Tuesday marking the storming in 1979 of the American embassy, antipathy still ran deep.

With chants of "Death to America", several thousand gathered in Tehran to mark 35 years since the day students breached the embassy's walls and seized hostages, sending diplomatic relations into freefall.

In what has become an annual ritual of defiance, the US flag, as well as those of Israel and Britain were set ablaze while many protesters carried "Down with USA" placards.

This year's anniversary came as Iran and the West make headway in seeking a deal over Tehran's controversial nuclear programme, but Tuesday's crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 spoke of anything but detente.

"That is diplomacy, but I am here to mark the oppression, cruelty and injustice of America," said Hamed Kargari, a 24-year-old student, when asked if the nuclear talks made this year's protest less relevant.

The two-storey former embassy building, known as the “Den of Spies” in Iran on account of alleged plots conceived there, stands as a memorial to bygone US influence.

Its outside walls are covered with anti-American slogans and the compound is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards who underpin the clerical regime that has been in power in Iran since the overthrow of the US-backed Shah in 1979.

Tuesday’s demonstration coincided with Ashoura, the commemoration of the killing of Imam Hussein in 680 AD, now one of the holiest days in Shiite Islam, Iran’s predominant faith.

‘The big devil’ 

As rain poured down, some protesters drew a parallel with modern times, suggesting Iran’s nuclear activities were symbolic of Hussein’s resistance to the powerful Caliph Yazid, whose army eventually killed the imam.

“The big devil will never change its position,” said Gholam Reza, 50, pointing at a giant mock-up poster on the road next to the embassy depicting US President Barack Obama as the caliph firing Israeli missiles at children in Gaza.

“We would like to have a nuclear deal, but not one that treads on our red lines,” said Reza, commander of a unit in the Basij paramilitary volunteer force established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the revolution.

After readings from the Koran to mark Ashoura, American, British and Israeli flags were soaked in fuel and set on fire, turning them into ashes in less than a minute while men, women and a few children looked on.

The demonstration highlighted the gulf that remains between Iran’s conservative hardliners and the moderate government of President Hassan Rouhani, who last year chose to re-open talks with the West.

“We are not the sort of people who will compromise,” said Zahra Darvish, surrounded by other women wearing traditional head-to-toe black chadors and separated from men at the protest.

“Imam Hussein did not compromise. Right now, the Yazid of the time is the United States,” she said, referring again to the loathed caliph.

Her friend Azar Amini, then aged 24, was outside the embassy when it was overrun in 1979.

A teacher since, she spoke darkly of a potential war with the United States — the chances of which have receded but not disappeared since Rouhani won power and reopened the nuclear talks.

“We don’t want a war, but if the United States goes to war with us I will go to war with my four sons.”

KARBALA, Iraq — A gathering of millions of Shiite Muslims at shrines and mosques across Iraq for the Ashoura religious commemoration passed without any major attacks on Tuesday, under tight security imposed for fear of Islamic State (IS) bombers.

Crowds of hundreds of thousands of people in the holy city of Karbala had largely dispersed in safety after nightfall, following a day of worship and prayer to mark the 7th century battle that further divided the Muslim world into Sunnis and Shiites.

Dozens of pilgrims were killed in Baghdad alone in the run-up to this year’s event, despite an increase in security since suspected Al Qaeda suicide bombers and mortar attacks killed 171 people during Ashoura in Karbala and Baghdad in 2004.

But no big attacks were reported in Iraq as Shiites across the Muslim world commemorated the slaying of Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein at the battle of Karbala in AD 680.

Gunmen shot dead at least five people in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, state news agency SPA reported, in what local residents said was an attack on Shiite Muslim worshippers on Monday night, testing already strained relations between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East.

IS, seen as more ruthless than Al Qaeda, says Shiites are infidels who deserve to be killed. The group, which seized large parts of northern Iraq this year, regularly claims responsibility for suicide bombings against Shiites, who are a minority in Islam but form the majority in Iraq.

In Karbala, huge masses of pilgrims gathered outside the Shrine of Imam Hussein where the grandson of the prophet is buried, chanting: “Hussein, Hussein, Hussein.” During the ritual, Shiites beat their heads and chests and gash their heads with swords to show their grief at Hussein’s suffering.

In the past, suicide bombers posing as pilgrims have infiltrated large crowds and militants have fired mortar rounds at the gathering from the outskirts of Kerbala.

History of oppression

Under Saddam Hussein’s secular rule, such gatherings were banned in Iraq, which was ruled mostly by Sunnis in his Baath Party.

Since the dictator was toppled in 2003, Shiites have dominated Iraqi governments. The newfound right to practice their faith openly en masse in huge annual pilgrimages is an important triumph for the sect but puts them at risk of suicide bombing attacks by hardline Sunni groups.

IS’ attacks on Shiites have contributed to a return in violence to the levels of 2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war.

After taking office three months ago, Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, a moderate Shiite, promised to heal sectarian divisions to unite the country against IS, which has declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria it controls.

But many Sunnis remain alienated from Baghdad, complaining that there have been no tangible signs that Abadi is taking on Iranian-backed Shiite militias, which seem to act with impunity.

Sunnis, who were marginalised by Abadi’s predecessor Nouri Al Maliki, say the militias kidnap, torture and kill at will. The militias say they only go after IS militants.

The government hopes to win back some support from Sunni tribes to fight IS, as the US Marines did against Al Qaeda during the “surge” campaign of 2006-2007. But so far, Sunni tribesmen who have stood up to IS have paid a heavy price while saying they have yet to receive Baghdad’s aid.

Last week, IS fighters executed more than 300 members of a Sunni tribe who had defied them in western Anbar province and dumped the bodies in mass graves or on roadsides.

During the emotional ritual in Kerbala, Shiites were defiant, despite the new dangers.

“Islamic State cannot stop us from coming with their violence,” said pilgrim Ali Ajaj, 65.

His wife, Um Mohammed, recalled how Saddam Hussein’s agents killed two of their sons, a tragedy that made her more determined to practice her faith.

“Islamic State car bombs and explosions will not stop me from coming,” she said.

Under strict security measures on Tuesday, cars were not allowed to enter Kerbala for fear of car bomb attacks. Instead, pilgrims boarded buses organised by the authorities.

There were no reports of bombing attacks by nightfall. But Iraq’s relentless violence was seen elsewhere.

In Diyala Province, mortar rounds wounded five people, security sources said. An unidentified body of someone who was shot execution-style was retrieved in the same province.

AMMAN — The Islamic Supreme Committee in Jerusalem on Tuesday hailed His Majesty King Abdullah’s stance towards Islamic and Christian holy sites in the city. 

They highlighted King Abdullah’s directives to the government to exert all efforts to safeguard Al Aqsa Mosque, considering it a red line, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

At a meeting organised by the committee, Al Awqaf Department and Al Iftaa Department in Jerusalem, participants called on His Majesty to continue his efforts to stop Israeli practices of closing Al Aqsa Mosque and barring worshippers under a certain age from entering the compound, the third holiest shrine in Islam.

They also stressed that the mosque belongs only to Muslims, and the Monarch’s custodianship over holy sites in the city represents custodianship on behalf of the entire Umma.

Israeli authorities have repeatedly closed the gates of the mosque and prevented worshippers from entering. Also, they have attacked employees of the Islamic Awqaf Department in Jerusalem, obstructed their work and allowed extremist Jews to enter the mosque under the protection of Israeli security forces.

Jordan has placed pressure on the Israeli government to halt the practices, with Israeli reports indicating that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the Knesset to ease the situation in the holy city.

The Islamic Supreme Committee was established after Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, comprising key Muslim scholars who joined ranks to defend the holy places in the city.

The committee said in a statement that Israel, Israeli media outlets and Western politicians and media institutions use the term “the Temple Mount”, stressing that this is a wrong name as the shrine has one name: Al Aqsa Mosque, which belongs to the Muslim faith.

The committee, the Islamic Awqaf Department and Al Iftaa Department in Jerusalem stressed that the use of any other names for the compound “is merely a matter of faking facts and aimed at changing the current status quo of the compound”.

In another statement, the committee referred to what the media was circulating regarding a Jewish organisation that intends to split Al Aqsa Mosque in terms of time and place between Muslims and Jews.

The committee said that Knesset does not have the right to discuss such a “dangerous project, since it has no authority over the mosque”.

The statement stressed that Jerusalem is still an occupied city, and the occupation forces do not have the right to make any changes to occupied areas.

OCCUPIUED JERUSALEM — Israeli occupation forces demolished two Palestinian homes on Tuesday in an East Jerusalem neighbourhood that has been at the heart of clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian protesters, a move likely to exacerbate weeks of tension in the holy city.

Authorities knocked down the buildings near the district of Abu Tor, southeast of the Old City, in the early hours, saying they had been built without construction permits.

"At 5 o'clock this morning, around 90 policemen and two bulldozers kicked us out of the house and started destroying it without letting us take any of our belongings," Hamza Abu Rajab, owner of one of the buildings, told Reuters.

He said his extended family of 17 was now homeless.

Jerusalem's Israeli municipality said it had carried out two demolition orders on partially-built structures put up without permits in an area where building is banned.

"The municipality enforces the law against illegal building equally, in all parts of the city," it said.

Tension has deepened in the Silwan and Abu Tor districts in recent months, with almost nightly clashes between Palestinians throwing rocks and setting off firecrackers and heavily armed Israeli forces firing stun grenades and tear gas.

The unrest has grown since the July-August war in Gaza and the movement of dozens of Jewish settlers into Silwan in recent weeks. A push by Orthodox Jews to be allowed to pray at an Old City site that is holy to both Muslims and Jews, in defiance of a decades-long ban agreed by Israel, has also fuelled anger.

In Abu Tor, clashes escalated last week after Israeli forces killed a local man suspected of having shot and seriously wounded a right-wing Israeli activist who has called for Jews to be allowed to pray at the holy site, known to Muslims as Al Haram Al Sharif (noble sanctuary) and to Jews as Temple Mount.

A Palestinian official responsible for Jerusalem said the difficulty in getting housing permits applied unfairly to East Jerusalem’s mainly Arab residents. Locals frequently tell of years of struggle to secure a permit that takes a few weeks for Jewish residents in the western side of the city.

“This incident is part of an attempt to punish Arab Jerusalemites in various ways,” Ahmed Rwaidi said. “Why else are there building permits available in West Jerusalem and no demolitions there?”

Palestinians seek Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 war — for their future state.

Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital and has annexed it in a move that has never been accepted internationally.

DUBAI — Saudi security forces on Tuesday shot dead a member of an armed group that killed five people in an overnight attack on Shiite Muslims marking an important religious anniversary, Al Arabiya television reported.

The late Monday assault on a Shiite gathering in Al Ahsa district is likely to test already strained relations between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East because it coincided with the annual Ashoura commemoration of Shiite Islam.

The Dubai-based Al Arabiya said security forces who had been hunting suspects in the Al Ahsa attack clashed with and killed "a wanted man" at a rest area in the Al Qassim province, northwest of the capital Riyadh.

A member of the kingdom's emergency forces also died in the clashes, it said.

A Saudi interior ministry spokesman earlier said that six people had been arrested in connection with the attack in Al Dalwah village.

"As a group of citizens was leaving a building... three masked men opened fire at them with machine guns and pistols," the spokesman was cited as saying by state news agency SPA.

Victims mostly young men

Al Ahsa is one of Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia's main centres of minority Shiites, who in common with co-religionists around the world are marking Ashoura, a holy day commemorating the death of Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein with public ceremonies and processions.

In Riyadh, an official council of top Sunni Muslim scholars condemned the attack as a "vicious assault and a heinous crime whose perpetrators deserve the harshest religious penalties”.

There are conflicts that are sectarian or have sectarian undertones in countries across the Middle East, including Syria, Bahrain, Yemen and Iraq.

In Saudi Arabia, seen as the birthplace of Islam, Shiism has been regularly decried as heretical in sermons and religious broadcasts. Deep-seated suspicion of Shiite power Iran across the Middle East has also fuelled animosity.

Since capturing the world's attention this year with a flash assault on Iraq, ultra hardline Sunni militants Islamic State have persecuted religious minorities including Shiites, who they believe are infidels who deserve to be killed.

On a Facebook page calling itself "The Revolutionary Movement of Qatif", activists posted a video of a young boy in hospital with a bandaged foot describing the attack with a limp voice. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the video.

"The prayer had finished. Me, Mahdi, Mohammed and Amer were leaving. We saw him carrying a gun and coming from the side road. Then he shot at Mohammed, Hassan, then me and Mahdi. Then there was more shooting. It finished and later they showed me the shell casings," he said.

An onlooker said: "May God heal you."

Qatif, another centre of the Saudi Shiite minority alongside Al Ahsa, has been the focal point of anti-government demonstrations in support of Shiites.

Alleged discrimination

A local rights activist said that the victims were mostly young men who were standing at the entrance of a local gathering place, known as a Huseiniya, where the commemorative ceremony was taking place.

"It seems the criminals were in a hurry and opened fire on youngsters at the entrance and fled," Ali Al Bahrani, a local rights activist, told Reuters by telephone.

A local online newspaper, http://www.hasanews.com/, earlier reported that six people were killed and 12 were wounded, some seriously, in what it called a "terrorist attack" on the ceremonies in the village.

Shiites say they face discrimination in seeking educational opportunities or government employment in the majority Sunni state and that they are referred to disparagingly in text books and by some officials and state-funded clerics.

They also complain of curbs on setting up places of worship and marking Shiite holidays, and say Qatif and Al Ahsa receive less state funding than Sunni communities of equivalent size.

The Saudi government denies allegations of discrimination.

PARIS — French Socialist lawmakers are preparing to submit a motion to parliament asking the government to recognise Palestine as a state, sources said Tuesday, weeks after British MPs passed a similar vote.

The planned move follows the collapse of peace talks between Israel and Palestinian territories and this year's conflict in Gaza in which more than 2,000 Palestinians and dozens of Israelis were killed.

"The [lower house National] Assembly asks the French government to use recognition of the state of Palestine as an instrument to obtain a final settlement of the conflict," reads the provisional motion seen by AFP.

A meeting on the lawmakers' proposal is due Wednesday with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Socialist senators who are also planning a similar initiative.

Fabius himself acknowledged last month that Paris would eventually have to recognise Palestine as a state, but wanted to choose the best moment to do so for the move to have a real impact.

The lower house vote could take place within weeks, and while it is unlikely to change government policy immediately, it would be highly symbolic after a similar move by British MPs last month.

GAZA — There is still not an effective or united Palestinian government in place in Gaza and unless stability is achieved rapidly, another conflict will engulf the territory, a senior United Nations official said on Tuesday.

Robert Turner, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, said the extent of damage and homelessness after the July-August war was worse than first thought. The latest estimates suggested reconstruction would take two to three years if all went well, he said.

"I do not see the national consensus government effectively governing Gaza," said Turner, referring to a technocrat Cabinet agreed in June between the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and the Islamist movement Hamas, which dominates Gaza.

"If we do not have political stability, I think if we do not have a national Palestinian government, I think if we do not have at least an easing of the blockade, yes there will be another war," Turner told reporters.

Israel has agreed to ease its blockade on Gaza's borders and allow reconstruction material and other goods to flow more freely into the territory, but it is predicated on the reconciliation government assuming full control in the enclave.

Ongoing differences between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, particularly over the payment of salaries to Hamas employees, has kept tensions high in Gaza and the flow of goods into the territory has been stalled. After a rocket was fired out of Gaza last week, Israel closed the borders for three days.

Economists in Gaza have estimated that as many as 400 trucks of equipment — from concrete to building materials and machinery — is needed every day for the next six months to meet the demand, but so far only around 75 trucks have made deliveries.

"I know there is frustration at the pace of reconstruction," Turner said, adding that efforts were under way to fully implement a mechanism negotiated by the UN's special coordinator in the Middle East, Robert Serry, to speed up the flow of goods.

Choke points

That mechanism relies on extremely close monitoring of all materials going into Gaza, including GPS tracking and video surveillance of their storage, to ensure nothing goes missing and ends up being used by militants to attack Israel.

"There are a number of weak points, choke points, and the mechanism is one," Turner said. "We need political progress or we will not have the resources to do reconstruction regardless of what mechanism we have."

At a conference last month, international donors pledged $5.4 billion in aid to Gaza's 1.8 million Palestinians, with around half of that earmarked for rebuilding the estimated 80,000 homes damaged or destroyed during the seven-week war.

The conflict, which began after Israel said it was determined to put a stop to constant rocket fire by Hamas fighters into Israel, killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were also killed.

While Hamas and people in Gaza have lamented the slow flow of goods, Turner was optimistic that the volume could be greatly increased if political stability could be brought to bear and if Egypt and Israel fully lifted their combined blockade.

Asked if a volume of 400 trucks a day could be achieved, he was positive. "I do not believe the crossing is a problem," he said. "All the technical problems can be addressed. The question for me is that the political choke points be addressed."

"If the political will exists... expanding the crossing to 800 trucks a day is just a matter of paying for the expansion."

LOD, Israel — Israel and the United States used the inauguration of a joint warplane project on Tuesday to stress it was business as usual in an alliance hit by acrimony over Israeli settlement building and strategy against Iran.

At a ceremony at the Israeli manufacturer of wings for Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 jet fighter, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon described his country's participation in the project as evidence that bilateral ties were bulletproof.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama have often been at odds over how to respond to Palestinian statehood demands or balance diplomacy and the threat of force in curbing Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

Those tensions have boiled over at times, most recently with vigorous US condemnation of a surge in Israeli settlement building in occupied East Jerusalem and, last week, an anonymous Obama aide's reported smear of Netanyahu as "chickenshit".

"The special relationship between the United States and Israel is stronger than any disagreement," Yaalon said in a speech at the new wings factory in state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries' (IAI) campus, near Tel Aviv.

"And there is no dispute on the gratitude that the people of Israel owe the United States for supporting our strength and security," said Yaalon, whose scorn for Palestinian peace talks has raised hackles in Washington.

In a sign of the US displeasure, Israeli media reported that when Yaalon visited the United States last month, he was denied meetings with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

However, he did get to see Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel.

IAI is scheduled to make more than 800 sets of F-35 wings, while another Israeli company, Elbit Systems Ltd., will produce helmets for the pilots. Susan Ouzts, vice-president of international programmes at Lockheed, put the value of Israel's contribution to the F-35 project at $4 billion.

Israel has bought 19 F-35s for $2.75 billion, with deliveries expected to begin in 2016, and could soon order between 25 and 31 more of the planes, defence sources said.

They said Yaalon was expected to decide on that purchase on Wednesday at a meeting of Israeli officials kept low-key because of Finance Ministry misgivings about the large defence budget.

Israel tilts against V-22s

Israel is also uncertain to what extent it can bank on US grants to underwrite long-term defence procurement after Washington's current payouts of some $3 billion annually expire in 2017. Both sides expect the grants to continue, though negotiations on the exact amount have yet to be concluded.

Defence sources said Israel would likely decide against buying six V-22 tilt-rotor special forces planes also on offer from the United States for some $600 million, and use some of the money for more locally-designed Namer armoured vehicles, whose parts are made by US company General Dynamics.

A US official said the Israelis were trying to persuade Washington to preserve the proposed V-22s price — which represents a 40 to 50 per cent discount — for a future purchase option. This may prove too tall an order for the Americans given the interest of countries like UAE and Japan in buying V-22s, which are manufactured by Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter.

US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, who spoke at the IAI event after both countries' flags were raised and national anthems sung, echoed Yaalon's confidence in the alliance.

"In today's world, with actors seeking to cause harm to both our countries, it is reassuring to know that the United States and Israel will always support each other and each other's security," Shapiro said.

IAI started building F-35 wings, at a pace of a set a week, in September, but had to postpone the inauguration due to the threat of incoming Palestinian rockets during Israel's Gaza war in July and August.

PARIS — France and Lebanon signed on Tuesday a Saudi-funded deal worth $3 billion to provide French weapons and military equipment to the Lebanese army to help it fight jihadis encroaching from neighbouring Syria.

The Lebanese army, one of the few institutions not overtaken by the sectarian divisions that plague the tiny country, has few resources to deal with the instability on its border and has been seeking to modernise its military hardware.

Saudi Arabia sees itself as the defender of Sunni Islam in the region and wants to help beef up Lebanese security forces in the face of threats from both the jihadis and Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hizbollah.

French, Lebanese and Saudi officials attended Tuesday's signing ceremony in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

"I welcome the signature of the contract to help the Lebanese army," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement. "This agreement, financed by a Saudi grant, will contribute to strengthen the Lebanese army, which guarantees the unity and stability of Lebanon."

He gave no further details. The French defence ministry is due to outline details of the contract on Wednesday.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament on October 8 the deal included land, air and naval equipment.

Lebanese officials fear Islamist insurgents from the Syrian war are trying to expand their influence into Sunni Muslim areas of northern Lebanon. They see a rising threat from groups such as Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and the ultra-hardline Islamic State, which may try to open up new supply routes between Syria and Lebanon as winter unfolds.

Jihadis attacked and briefly seized the Lebanese border town of Arsal in August and since then the army has stepped up its efforts to prevent fighters from crossing into Lebanon.

"This deal will help to ensure the army's mission to defend its territory and to fight terrorism at a time when Lebanon is threatened," Fabius said.

Lebanon, a former French colony, has officially tried to distance itself from Syria's civil war, but its Hezbollah movement has sent fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad, a member of the Shiite-derived Alawite minority.

Assad and Hizbollah are both backed by Shiite regional heavyweight Iran.

Lebanon, which is still rebuilding after its own 15-year civil war, has also seen clashes between gunmen loyal to opposing sides in the Syrian conflict, as well as militant strikes on the army and cross-border attacks by Syrian rebels.

Saudi Arabia, which has already provided $1 billion in military aid to the Lebanese army, has recently taken part in US-led air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria.