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Frustration, uncertainty stretches back to bay area

By ALDO NAHED
Published July 19, 2006

TAMPA - Jay M. Cheikhali hoped his wife and two sons would be scooped up from southern Lebanon by a U.S. Embassy convoy on Tuesday.

Private vehicles offered to give them a ride, but the Tampa family visiting Lebanese relatives felt it would be safer to wait for an embassy bus. Four hours later, no one had shown up, he said.

"We're back to square zero right now," he said from his home in Tampa Palms. "That was a huge letdown."

Embassy officials told his wife, Sawssan, that they were too swamped and couldn't make it. Cheikhali, 49, an engineer for AT&T, said he's in contact with a private taxi company to ferry his family to safety.

"I think frustration does not describe what we are feeling," he said. "There is no cease-fire, so clearly there is no way that things are going to calm down."

Cheikhali said he feels powerless to help his sons, Ryan, 10, and Mo, 15. His family is only 60 miles from the embassy, but the only way to get to safety is through back roads.

More than two dozen U.S. citizens from the Tampa Bay area are stuck in Lebanon, estimates Ahmed Bedier, the Tampa office director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"In the first days there was concern," Bedier said, describing e-mails sent to his organization by bay area residents in Lebanon. "Their concerns have turned into great fear."

Even though U.S. citizens are being evacuated, Bedier said they have to risk their lives to make it to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

"The situation is becoming more of a humanitarian crisis," he said. "We are urging members to meet with elected officials to vent our frustration and ask for a cease-fire."

Tricia Kupstas is in contact via e-mail with her friends, the Fawaz family of New Port Richey, who were visiting family when they became trapped.

"We are in a lot of trouble over here," wrote Brenda Fawaz, who is with her husband and their three children. "We have seen another life and the end of ours flash in front of us."

Monday, Fawaz wrote that they were hiding in a hotel with other Americans, waiting to be evacuated.

"I think they are getting out okay, but it's hard to tell if they are covering things up for the kids," Kupstas said. "She was always afraid to go. Finally she decided to go and this happened."

Aldo Nahed can be reached at anahed@sptimes.com or (813) 310-0998.

[Last modified July 19, 2006, 01:19:25]