Report: Trump Foreign Policy Adviser Linked to Militia Blamed for Lebanon Massacre
Mother Jones reports that the candidate has revealed five new advisers, among them an academic once linked to a Christian militia accused of perpetrating mass killings of Palestinians in Beirut.
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has named a Lebanese academic adviser who had an important role in a Christian militia accused of involvement in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinians, Mother Jones magazine reports on its Web site.
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Walid Phares is one of five advisers revealed by Trump to the Washington Post on Monday. Phares also advised Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, the magazine said.
Mother Jones cited a story it ran in 2011 quoting a former colleague, Toni Niss, as saying Phares had been a major player in the Lebanese militia and that he had helped the militia's leade Samir Geagea instll religious ideology in their troops.
The militia was accused at the time of involvement in the slayings of hundreds of Palestinians in two refugee camps as Israeli forces encircled Beirut. An Israeli commission of inquiry punished senior officials for failing to prevent the killlings perpetrated by the Lebanese forces which were allied with the IDF at that time.