Smugglers in north Lebanon trade cement, not arms

WADI KHALED, Lebanon, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Lebanese soldiers deployed in the northeast of the country to intercept Hizbollah weapons will spend more time uncovering contraband goods than halting arms shipments, local people said yesterday.

Acting under the UN resolution which brought an end to a month of fighting between Israel and the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla movement, the Lebanese army set up checkpoints in the Wadi Khaled pocket on the Syrian border five days ago.

They have a mandate to check vehicles for weapons but in practice the soldiers are more likely to find smuggled cement, plate glass, diesel fuel, tobacco, beer or motorcycles.

Smuggling is a way of life for the people of Wadi Khaled and the surrounding villages. The arrival of the army has them worried that they may have to adjust to a new reality.

''People are really anxious about what will happen. If the army stops the smuggling, the government will have to find the people jobs,'' said a woman who runs a restaurant for daytrippers on the banks of the stream which marks the border.

''Anyway, it's just free trade, not smuggling,'' added the woman, who like other residents declined to be named.

A succession of trucks loaded with bags of Lebanese cement trundled up the slope towards Wadi Khaled, but there is no sudden building boom in this remote and thinly populated region.

(ARMY LENIENT SO FAR) Instead they are bound for a secret rendez-vous with trucks from Syria, local people said. At night the trucks connect back to back and the crews transfer the cargo from one to the other.

In exchange they bring in diesel fuel, which in Syria costs about a third of what it fetches in Lebanon, they said.

Local people said the army had started to crack down on the diesel fuel trade, which costs the government lost revenue, but at the nearest checkpoint a sergeant said the army had been lenient so far because of a fuel shortage created by the war.

''We search every truck that comes through and we haven't come across anything in the way of arms,'' he said.

''We're going easy on the fuel because of the exceptional circumstances but gradually it will have to stop,'' he added.

Another resident said that, in a region where people mostly know what others are up to, he had never heard of Hizbollah using the local roads as a conduit for imports of weapons.

However, Wadi Khaled is just one point along Lebanon's 375-km border with Syria, much of which is remote and mountainous. Israel says weapons are being brought across the border to Hizbollah, a charge the group denies.

Logistically it would make little sense to use Wadi Khaled as an entry point, since it is a drive of many hours to the Israeli border and Hizbollah has hardly any presence in the region, where Shi'ite Muslims are rare.

One Hizbollah flag flies in Wadi Khaled but it is a recent addition, raised by a Sunni Muslim family to show solidarity with the Shi'ite guerrillas who withstood Israeli attacks in the south for more than a month until August 14.

It is greatly outnumbered by the French, Italian, German and Brazilian flags flying from local houses -- left over from the soccer World Cup in Germany in June and July.

REUTERS SSC BS0904