DAMASCUS, June 21, 2007 (AFP) - Syria has decided to close its Jussa-Al-Qaa border post with Lebanon because of the month-long battle between the Lebanese army and Islamists, the state news agency SANA announced.

The closure decided by the interior ministry will stay in place "until calm has returned to northern Lebanon", it said late Wednesday. It was designed "to protect Syrian and Lebanese citizens".

On May 20, at the outbreak of the clashes in Lebanon, Damascus shut two other border posts, at Arida and Dabussiya, also in central-western Syria. Two other crossings remain open, notably on the main Damascus-Beirut highway.

Lebanon's anti-Syrian majority charges that the Fatah al-Islam militiamen locked in a deadly showdown with the army at a refugee camp in north Lebanon have linked to Syrian intelligence, an allegation denied by Damascus.

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