"Time is when either Damascus or Beirut can fully control the Sunni militant forces operating on or from their territory?"

Michael Scheuer in 1/4: "The quartet of articles will seek to assess the validity of the recent claim by the state-run Syrian newspaper al-Thawara that because of the war in Iraq "the [Levant] region is throbbing with terrorists". , in AsiaTimes, here

"...an al-Qaeda-led mujahideen bleed-through from Iraq to Syria had fertile ground in which to take root in 2003.......a multinational assortment of veteran mujahideen stranded in Syria after leaving Iraq; and would-be fighters who got to Syria but were prevented from entering Iraq. ....
They also will have to cope with an external threat by better controlling the Syria-Lebanon border to prevent the infiltration of Islamist fighters angry with Damascus and eager to strike back for the blocking of routes to Iraq. Assad and other Syrian officials have already claimed the border is being infiltrated by violent, Saudi-backed "Salafists", "Takfiris" and other "extremist forces" from northern Lebanon, and several Arab commentators have noted that this is a legitimate concern for Damascus because northern Lebanon lies close to Syria's "Sunni belt", once a hotbed of support for the SMB. Damascus' recent decision to sign a security-cooperation deal with the Lebanese regime shows the depth of the Assad regime's concern with the Islamist threat, but the time may be passing when either Damascus or Beirut can fully control the Sunni militant forces operating on or from their territory."