Pope arrives in Lebanon amid Mideast turmoil

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Lebanon’s capital Beirut Friday, in the third-ever visit by a Roman Catholic prelate to this Mediterranean country; the three-day sojourn comes amid a deadly conflict in Syria and violence in several Arab countries over an anti-Islam film. Security sources told The Daily Star that some 5,000 members of a special security force that includes police and Lebanese Army troops have deployed at all entrances to Beirut and in locations and routes the pope will frequent during his three-day visit. The source said the security force is being supervised by the Presidential Guard Unit, which is directly in charge of the pope’s safety. The pope was greeted upon his arrival at Beirut airport by President Michel Sleiman and the first lady as well as Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Mikati and their wives. Thirty other officials were present at the airport to welcome the pope, including Lebanon's top religious leaders and security and diplomatic figures. Clad in his usual white attire, the pope walked with Sleiman, who was dressed in a dark suit, and greeted other state officials and figures. With a red carpet having been rolled out to meet the pope's airplane, an Airbus 320, Sleiman walked beside the pontiff to a wooden podium specially constructed for them and sat on a pair of burgundy upholstered wooden chairs. A band played Lebanon’s national anthem and a 21-gun salute was fired. Vatican and Lebanese flags in addition to welcoming banners of all kinds lined the streets on which the pope’s motorcade will travel during his visit to Lebanon. On the airport road, yellow Hezbollah banners bearing the pontiff’s image and the words “Welcome to the homeland of the resistance” hung from electricity pylons. Triumphal arches were also raised on the streets along which the pope’s convoy will pass during his travel in Lebanon. The pontiff is scheduled to visit St. Paul's Basilica in Harissa at 6 p.m. Traffic will be prohibited on the seaside road between the Dbayyeh and Karantina bridges between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time. Trucks were also banned on the streets from 6 a.m. Friday till midnight Sunday and cars will not be able to park on the route the pope takes to Harissa between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Meanwhile, Beirut’s international airport said it was suspending flights Friday between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Beirut looked “united,” all the way from the Beirut airport road through the suburbs, into the heart of the capital and up to Kesrouan in the Metn region and Baabda, northeast of Beirut, wrote the local newspaper An-Nahar in its front page article Friday. His visit comes as the Syria crisis further deteriorates, with deadly clashes between government forces and rebels. It also comes as the region braces for an escalation of protests over an anti-Islam film. Demonstrators attacked the U.S. embassies in Sanaa, Yemen and Cairo, Egypt, and American warships headed toward Libya after the U.S. ambassador there was killed in violence sparked by the release of a film considered blasphemous to Islam. Benedict XVI is the third pope to visit Lebanon after Paul VI in 1964 (for an airport stopover and press conference) and John Paul II in 1997.