Fergie's Tech Blog

Syrians run up $11M phone bill in Lebanon

An AP newswire article, via The Globe and Mail, reports that:

Lebanon's state-run telephone system has billed the government for more than $11-million (U.S.) in unpaid telephone charges run up by Syrian troops before they left the country earlier this year after a nearly three-decade occupation.

Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the government would pay the bill, noting that Syrian troops had "paid in blood for our sake." An unknown number of Syrian soldiers were killed in trying to quell Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

The unpaid charges were for calls dating back to 1976 and were placed within Lebanon or between Lebanon and Syria, said Marwan Hamadeh, minister of Post, Telephone and Telegram. The bill, he said, amounted to $11.3-million.

posted by Fergie @ 10/21/2005 06:49:00 AM