W. Thomas Smith reports on some very scary developments in Lebanon:

Fires Raging Across Lebanon [W. Thomas Smith Jr.] BEIRUT — Fires were set simultaneously across the entire country of Lebanon a few hours ago.We don’t know why or the exact number yet. The papers are reporting eight. But we know there are at least 32 (probably more) burning from the south to the north, and from the coast to the Bekaa Valley.
Just got off the phone with Camille Chamoun, the grandson of the late Lebanese president of the same name.
He tells me:
This is not a coincidence. This is the work of our neighbors. The Syrians have a lot of operators here, and this puts extreme pressure on our government. He adds:
This could be a possible diversion [of the police and military forces] to launch a coup d’etat. 10/02 06:34 AM

The MSM’s coverage? Not quite as thorough. Reuters:

A police statement said at least 10 fires had erupted since late on Monday and civil defense forces were having difficulty reaching some of them. It was unclear how the fires had started.
Big fires were also reported in the northern region of Akkar and several others in the Metn area northeast of Beirut.
The town’s deputy governor described the Deir al-Qamar fires as “an environmental disaster.”

Tom has been warning of something happening in Lebanaon for days now. From yesterday:

Hezbollah is Secretly Building Battle Positions [W. Thomas Smith Jr.]JUBAL LUBNAN (east of Beirut) – I write this with some acceptance of risk (everything is a risk here). But it’s something that must be published.I know for a fact that Hezbollah is building defenses and fortifications from which they can launch attacks in the south (where I was two days ago), in the Bekaa Valley, and in Al Dahiyeh (the Hezbollah security square in Beirut, which we covertly entered and moved through twice during our photo-reconnaissance a few days ago). This is not hearsay: This is reality.
The construction (some of which I have seen with my own eyes) is being contracted through the Lebanese government with Wa’ad, a Hezbollah-owned company created – as both a front and a company based in Lebanon — from Jihad Al-Bina, an Iranian-based company on the U.S. terrorist-watchlist.
Wa’ad (“the promise”) is 100-percent owned and operated by Hezbollah. And the company is reconstructing houses and commercial buildings, which were destroyed during the war in 2006. But the houses are being rebuilt – as they were — with secret interconnecting corridors linking the houses together in a link-by-link network of fighting positions. There are tunnels running beneath the houses linking them with other buildings and adjacent neighborhoods, as well as to huge underground command posts. And there are walls being constructed with concealed weapons-storage spaces.
Families living and working in those buildings are renting apartments away from the ongoing construction, and they are doing so on Hezbollah’s dime.
Other tunnels (basically arms smuggling corridors), which were constructed before the war, run between Palestinian and Hezbollah-controlled areas in Lebanon to Syria.
Why is the Lebanese government permitting this? It’s far too complicated to address here.
More to come.
10/01 08:00 AM