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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanese remember bloody past after Assad fall — Naharnet
2024-12-10
[NAHARNET] Across Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
, the Middle East, and beyond, the fall of Syria's authoritarian government at the hands of Islamist-led rebels set off waves of jubilation, trepidation and alarm.

Many Lebanese exulted at the overthrow of the Syrian leader while others worried about more instability rocking a region in turmoil.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for a strict control of the border with Syria and for distancing Lebanon from the developments there. He urged the Lebanese "of all affiliations" to be "wise" and "avoid emotional reactions."

Mikati also asked Secretary-General of Council of Ministers Judge Mahmoud Makiya to communicate with the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons in Lebanon and with the relevant authorities regarding the release of Lebanese prisoners from Syrian prisons.

- LEBANESE IN SYRIAN PRISONS -
During 15 years of civil war in Lebanon, an estimated 17,000 people went missing. Many were held captive or were killed in detention centers operated by Syrian forces in Lebanon and Syria, but their fates remain unknown.

Since a Lebanese man, who was missing for 40 years, was freed by Syrian rebels from a prison in Hama last week, many Lebanese families are demanding to know the fate of their loved ones who are thought to be detained in Syrian prisons since Lebanon's civil war when Syrian troops were in Lebanon.

- GEAGEA SAYS 'NOTHING WORSE THAN ASSAD' -
Lebanese Forces
A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb...
 leader Samir Geagea
....Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005....
 congratulated all Lebanese on the fall of Bashir al-Assad's regime, saying that "over the past 50 years, the regime of Hafez and Bashir al-Assad was the biggest obstacle to the building of a state in Lebanon."

"It's impossible for the situation in Syria to be worse than Assad. There is noting worse," Geagea said.

- JUMBLAT SAYS 'JUSTICE ACHIEVED' -
Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Wally Jumblat
...Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
 saluted the Syrian people and celebrated Assad's ouster "after a lengthy wait."

Jumblat also called former PM Saad Hariri
...Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too....
 and told him that by Assad's fall "justice was achieved" for his slain father Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and other March 14 figures.

Al-Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...

... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
 Movement, founded by Hariri, for its part, congratulated the Syrian people in a statement and called on the Lebanese to preserve national unity.

- ASSASSINATIONS BLAMED ON SYRIA -
Hariri was assassinated in 2005 by a bomb in Beirut, blamed on Syria and Hezbollah. His liquidation sparked protests that ousted Syrian troops from Lebanon. Following Hariri's killing, several anti-Syrian figures were assassinated, including Samir Qassir, George Hawi, Gebran Tueni, Pierre Amine Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem and Walid Eido. Others escaped liquidation attempts including Elias Mur, May Chidiac, and Samir Shehade.

Jumblat's father, Kamal Jumblat was assassinated in 1977 in his car near Baakline by unidentified button men suspected to be members of the pro-Syrian faction of the Lebanese Syrian Social Nationalist Party, in collaboration with the Ba'ath Party.

In 1982, President Bashir Gemayel was killed with 26 other politicians by a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party who detonated a bomb from a few miles away using a remote detonator. He said he killed Gemayel because of his collaboration with Israel, which invaded Lebanon in 1982.

- GEMAYEL HAILS 'TYRANT FALL' -
Kataeb leader and Bashir's nephew Sami Gemayel wrote on X that "the criminal tyrant has fallen". "But Lebanon remains and the Kataeb remains."

He added that the names of his uncle Bashir, his brother Pierre Gemayel, and other deaders "stand tall, pulsating with freedom, illusory sovereignty and independence."

- BASSIL HOPES IT'S FOR THE GOOD OF LEBANON AND SYRIA -
Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
 leader Jebran Bassil hoped that the developments would be for the good of Syria and Lebanon and lead to a swift return of displaced Syrians to their country and to "positive and balanced relations" between the two countries.

- SYRIA STABILITY IMPACTS LEBANON -
Son of Hezbollah's presidential candidate and Assad's friend Suleiman Franjieh, Marada MP Tony Franjieh hoped, in a statement posted on the X platform, for a peaceful transfer of power that would preserve the country's stability and protect the rights of all Syrians.

"The stability of Lebanon has always been deeply affected by the stability of Syria," Franjieh said.

- BLOW TO HEZBOLLAH -
For Hezbollah, who had long used Syria as its key conduit for weapons and supplies from Iran, Assad's fall could further weakens the group, after the staggering losses it suffered in its own recent war with Israel.

"What's happening in Syria is a major, dangerous and new transformation," Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah said.

"No one can downplay its impact but we draw our presence and strength from God, from our faith before anything else, and from our people — and the existence, presence, formations, capabilities and high competencies of the resistance, despite everything that has been inflicted on it in this war," Fadallah added.

Early in Syria's civil war, when it appeared Assad might be tossed, Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and its ally, Hezbollah, rushed fighters to support him. Russia later joined with a scorched earth campaign of Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s.

For Israel, breaking Iran's regional network has been a major goal, though it is wary over jihadi fighters among the hard boyz who toppled Assad. Israel on Sunday moved troops into a demilitarized buffer zone with Syria by the Israel-held Golan Heights in what it called a temporary security measure.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Assad's fall a "historic day," saying it was "the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's main supporters."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Jumblat Advises Hizbullah to Allow STL Funding, Defend Suspects in Court
2011-11-11
[An Nahar] Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Wally Jumblat
... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
 on Thursday advised Hizbullah to allow Premier Najib Miqati's government to pay Leb's annual 49% share of funds to the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Leb.

"We've heard Hizbullah describing the suspects (in the 2005 liquidation of ex-PM Rafik Hariri) as 'sacred', but they must understand that those who were martyred, starting from Rafik Hariri all the way to (slain MP) Antoine Ghanem ... are also 'sacred'," Jumblat said in an interview on Al-Arabiya television.

"Why don't they go defend themselves in court?" Jumblat suggested, warning that "boycotting the tribunal would harm Leb."

Addressing the crisis in neighboring Syria, Jumblat said he was "against using Leb against Syria and vice versa."

"We respect the Syrian security forces, but they also have to respect the Lebanese security forces," Jumblat said when asked about recent controversy on the abduction of Syrian dissidents in Leb.

"I'm with security and military coordination between Leb and Syria, but it should have regulations," Jumblat stressed.

He called for a "settlement" between Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
's regime and its opponents, but underlined "the need to prevent foreign intervention."

"The Syrian people is capable of reaching a new Syria. I'm with a political settlement in Syria and it should be implemented in an appropriate manner," the Druze leader added.

He also said he was not opposed to "the intervention of some influential powers such as Turkey and Iran in Syria should the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
 deem that as necessary to stop the bloodshed."

On the other hand, he urged Assad to "accept the vaporous Arab League's initiative" to end the violence.

"We're not betting on the fall of the Syrian regime, but rather on reforms that would stop the bloodshed. I urge the Lebanese parties to sit together and engage in dialogue over how to protect Syria and I believe that Hizbullah will benefit the most in that case," Jumblat noted.

Asked about his relation with former premier Saad Hariri
Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.
, Jumblat said: "We exchange holiday greetings and we are former allies. We did not part because of a dispute over the principle of the tribunal, but rather over regional alliances and the fear of civil strife."

"Hariri and I should both help Syria exit its crisis by endorsing the Arab League's paper," he called on his former ally.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Majority hands the Parliament petition on proposed amendment
2007-12-28
A delegation of Lebanon’s majority MPs which included Akram Chehayyeb, Antoine Zahra and Ammar Houri handed the petition on the proposed amendment to the Secretary-General of the Council of Deputies Adnan Dahir at 2 PM local time .

Chehayyeb said : "On behalf of the majority we have presented the petition on the amendment of article 49 of the Lebanese constitution to allow the election of the Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman as President of the Republic signed by more than 10 MPs . This is an additional proof of the sincere desire of the parliamentary majority of March 14 to save the presidential elections by the election of Gen. Michel Suleiman as the compromise president for all of Lebanon, specially since the country is going through a lot of turmoil."

MP Antoine Zahra said : “I apologize for the absence of MP Walid Eido and MP Antoine Ghanem , two of the colleagues that Akram and I are used to accompany . He added those 2 MPS that were killed by 'wild pigs' will be back one day when Lebanon becomes a truly independent and democratic and free country.”

Eido and Ghanem who were outspoken anti Syrian MPs were assassinated in 2007. Syria ( and not the wild pigs ) was accused of the assassination but it denied any wrongdoing .

The MPs who signed the petition are Eli Aoun, Antoine Zahra, Imad Houri, Mustafa Hashim, Mohammad Qabbani, Serge Torsrkisian, Nabil de Freij, Riyad Rahhal, Jawad Boulos, Henry Helou, Akram Chehayyeb, Atef Majdalani, Ghazi Youssef. The petition urges the parliament to adopt the proposed amendment without any further delay to facilitate the election of General Suleiman and save the country from further turmoil.

MP Ali Bazzi, a member of Speaker Nabih Berri’s bloc predicted Berri will reject the petition, because he considers the government that initiated the proposed amendment to be unconstitutional.

Yesterday Hezbollah parliament bloc leader Mohammad Raad attacked Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government and accused it of seizing the presidential powers. Raad pledged "new complications" to the already tense situation.

The Lebanese media has also expressed pessimism about Saturday's election session and predicted that it will most probably meet the fate of previous attempts and leave the country without a president until after the new year when the parliament will be in recess. Saturday Dec. 29 is the date set for the election of the president.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Sophistication of Hajj's murder underscores Syria's role
2007-12-16
Wednesday's car bombing of Lebanese General Francois Hajj is being treated as something of a murder mystery because, unlike Lebanon's other recent assassination victims, the general was not an overt foe of Syria. Yet the method of his killing, along with the political benefits that accrue from his death, hardly rule out a Damascene hand.

Hajj made a name for himself earlier this year by routing Fatah al-Islam, a Sunni terrorist group that had been hiding out in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, up the coast from Beirut. This has led to speculation that Hajj was killed by that group to avenge its defeat. While that may be true, what's more significant is that Fatah al-Islam is widely suspected of being controlled and aided by Damascus. The sophistication of the bomb that killed Hajj -- a remote-control device similar to the one that killed anti-Syrian figures Gebran Tueni, Walid Eido and Antoine Ghanem -- underscores that suspicion.

No less important is that in targeting Hajj, who had reportedly been tipped to become the next chief of staff, a message has been sent that the Lebanese military is now fair game. The current chief of staff, General Michel Suleiman, is the nominee to be Lebanon's President, and Damascus is ambivalent about his candidacy. Murdering Hajj is a signal to General Suleiman and other officers not to chart too independent a course from Syria.

All this should alarm the Bush Administration, which was instrumental in evicting Syria from Lebanon in 2005. Instead, it has been helping to rehabilitate Bashar Assad's regime. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a point of meeting one-on-one with her Syrian counterpart at a regional meeting on Iraq in May. Syria's state-run news agency condemned the Hajj assassination via an unnamed government official, but the Syrians also condemned the murder with a remote-control bomb of Rafik Hariri in 2005. A U.N. probe into that murder has found overwhelming evidence of Syrian complicity.

The difference this time is that State Department spokesman Sean McCormack praised Syria for its condemnation, calling it "positive if continued over time." Maybe Secretary Rice believes she can get the Syrians to play nice on Iraq and Israel while thwarting their ambitions in Lebanon. For their part, the Syrians tend to view such American entreaties as signs of weakness. On Tuesday, Syrian Vice President Farouq Sharaa remarked that "no one in Lebanon, even with foreign support, can win the battle against Syria." The next day Hajj was dead, which, if nothing else, was a perfect illustration of Mr. Sharaa's point.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Explosion Kills 4, Including Military General, in Christian Suburb of Beirut
2007-12-12
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A large explosion rocked a Christian suburb east of Beirut early Wednesday, killing a top military general and three others and wounding dozens, the state-run news agency said. Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj, head of military operations in the army command, was killed in the explosion along with his bodyguard, the agency said. The army had no immediate comment.

The explosion came as Lebanon is embroiled in its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-90 civil war and amid heightened tensions between pro-government and opposition groups. The country has been without a president since Nov. 23 when Emile Lahoud left office and a deadlocked parliament failed to elect a successor. Hajj's name had been mentioned among others as a possible successor to army commander Michel Suleiman if he is elected president.

Lebanese security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with standing government regulations, said at least two cars were set afire and several others were damaged in Wednesday's bombing outside the municipality building in the town of Baabda. The wooded, hilly Baabda is the historic capital of Mount Lebanon province, and seat of the presidential palace, which is on a nearby hill. The Defense Ministry and the army command are located in the adjacent town of Yarze.

Lebanon has been rocked by a series of explosion since a massive truck bombing killed former Premier Rafik Hariri in 2005 in central Beirut. The last major explosion on Sept. 19 killed anti-Syrian lawmaker Antoine Ghanem on a Beirut street.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Brammertz warns: Hariri killers able to strike again
2007-11-30
U.N. officials investigating the killing of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri warned on Wednesday that those who carried out the attack still had the ability and resources to strike again in Beirut.

In his latest report on the U.N. investigative commission, Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz said he had made progress on the Hariri investigation in recent months and was able to draw preliminary conclusions about important aspects and to identify more people involved.

Since his last report in July, Brammertz said tension had been high in Lebanon, which is going through a protracted crisis over the election of a president to succeed pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud, whose term expired last week. "The commission notes that evidence uncovered in the Hariri and some of the other attacks, including the recent assassination of Antoine Ghanem, confirms the fact that the perpetrators had and still have advanced and extensive operational capacities available in Beirut," Brammertz said. Ghanem, an anti-Syrian Christian member of parliament, was among seven people killed by a car bomb in September.

Brammertz said the tense security environment was affecting the commission's work and warned that after the failure to elect a president last week, "the prospect of a rapid deterioration cannot be excluded."

WITNESS PROTECTION
Brammertz said the investigative commission needed to restrict the information it made public to avoid jeopardizing the probe and endangering individuals, and he recommended setting up a witness protection program. He said recent developments had led to the identification of "additional persons of interest" but he gave no names.

Brammertz has said in the past that a likely motive for the attack was the role of Hariri, who became a prominent critic of Syria, in support of a 2004 U.N. resolution demanding that Syrian and other foreign troops withdraw from Lebanon. In the latest report, he said Syria had been generally cooperative with the investigation.

Brammertz also is investigating 18 other political murders or attempted murders in Lebanon and he said the commission would focus on establishing links to the Hariri case.

It was Brammertz's last report to the Security Council before his mandate expires at the end of this year, when he will be replaced by Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare.

The commission is due to hand over its findings to a special tribunal that is being established in the Netherlands. Starting Jan. 1, Brammertz will take over as prosecutor of the Hague-based international tribunal for former Yugoslavia, replacing Switzerland's Carla Del Ponte. His appointment was approved on Wednesday by the U.N. Security Council.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
UN urged to investigate Lahoud's crimes
2007-11-28
As soon as Lebanon's former president Emile Lahoud stepped down and left the presidential palace the International Lebanese Committee (ILC) for UN Resolution 1559 issued the following press release urging the investigation of the crimes committed during Lahoud's term in office
The International Lebanese Committee ( ILC) for UN Resolution 1559 expresses its satisfaction that former President Emile Lahoud has finally left the Presidential Palace in Baabda after more than three years from his illegal extension of power, a breach of laws and principles which was addressed by one stipulation of the UN 1559 issued in September 2004, one day after the constitutional piracy was forced on the Lebanese People. However now that Mr. Lahoud has left the office, the Committee is calling on the UN special prosecutor in the Terrorist attacks in Lebanon since the fall of 2004 and the special envoy of the Secretary General of the UN to investigate General Lahoud regarding the following serious charges:

1. The Hariri and Lebanese politicians assassinations:
General Lahoud was an imposed President of Lebanon between October 2004 and November 2007. Under his Presidential mandate six political leaders, including legislators and a minister were savagely assassinated and two political activists murdered for political reasons. Under his Presidency the joint operations room between his regime, the Syrian regime and Hezbollah was still in function. General Lahoud was the higher supervisor of this joint operation room and thus is aware of the cooperation between the two regimes and Hezbollah in Lebanon during this period of time. A UN investigation with General Lahoud is now warranted in the Terror assassinations of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, MP Basem Fleihan and their escort, Samir Qassir, George Hawi, MP Gebran Tueni, Minister and MP Pierre Gemayel, MP Walid Eido and MP Antoine Ghanem. General Lahoud as the highest security official overseeing the joint intelligence operation room along with the Syrian regime and Hezbollah must be investigated at once by the UN investigation committee.

2. The assassination of Lebanese activists:
General Lahoud, being the head of the regime between 1998 ad 2007 and the highest authority overseeing the intelligence joint operation room with Syria and Hezbollah, should also be investigated in the assassination of Lebanese political activists who were kidnapped, tortured and killed between 1998 and 2007.

3. The Lebanese detainee in Syria:
General Lahoud, being the head of the regime between 1998 ad 2007 and the highest authority overseeing the intelligence joint operation room with Syria and Hezbollah, should also be investigated in the illegal arrest, kidnapping and transfer to Syrian jails of hundreds of Lebanese and non Lebanese national where they were tortured and some have been killed while others are still unaccounted for.

4. The Lebanese military and civilians murdered in 1990
General Lahoud, having deserted the legal Lebanese Army in 1990 and appointed by a Syrian-backed Government as a new commander of a Syrian controlled Lebanese Army that same year took responsibility for a joint Syrian-Lebanese military operation against the Ministry of Defense and the Presidential Palace in Lebanon between 7 AM and 5 PM on October 13, 1990. During that operation hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and civilians were executed against all norms of international law and a number of military personnel and civilians were detained and transferred to Syria. General Lahoud should be investigated for information he may have kept about these executions and the fate of the vanished persons.
The Committee 1559 also calls on the parents and relatives of all the victims mentioned above to inform the UN Investigation Commission about all questions related to these crimes and acts of terror, so that the investigation with General Lahoud can be comprehensive.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Kouchner warns Syria over political vacuum in Lebanon
2007-11-04
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned Syria Friday that the international community could not "remain indifferent" to the current political vacuum in Lebanon. "We have made it very clear to Syria ... that a political vacuum in Lebanon could destabilize the entire region and would not be in Syria's interest," Kouchner said following talks in Istanbul with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem. Their meeting on the sidelines of a conference on Iraqi security marked the first high-level contact between the two countries since the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.

Former French president Jacques Chirac suspended high-level talks with Syria after his friend Hariri was killed in Beirut. An initial UN inquiry implicated Damascus.

Lebanon's ruling coalition has accused Damascus of being behind the killing of Lebanese MP Antoine Ghanem in a car bomb in a Beirut suburb in September, a charge rejected by the Syrians. Friday's talks on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq in Istanbul came after Kouchner canceled a September meeting in New York in response to the assassination of a Lebanese anti-Syrian MP.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran & Syria threaten Lebanon's anti-Syrian leaders
2007-10-29
Lebanese leaders fear that Iran and Syria are planning a new assassination campaign in Lebanon as part of an effort to derail the complex negotiations now underway to elect a new president. Newsmax has learned of the plot from interviews with key political and religious leaders in Lebanon.

Lebanese cabinet ministers and some 40 anti-Syrian members of parliament have holed themselves up in an annex to the luxury hotel Phoenicia in downtown Beirut, to protect themselves from assassination. Many have not even seen daylight for the past month, living in separate wing of the hotel with heavy curtains, complex security arrangements, and restricted access, even for family members. One cabinet member was not even allowed to go out this week to attend his father's funeral.

Its either this or the cemetery, said Wael Abou Faour, one of the deputies.

Six anti-Syrian members of parliament, including a government minister, have been assassinated since 2005. The latest victim was Antoine Ghanem, a constitutional scholar murdered along with four others on Sept. 19. Ghanem was a key strategist for the opposition Cedars Revolution who explored constitutional precedent for electing a president with a simple majority of Lebanon's 126 member parliament, instead of a two-thirds quorum, as the pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian parties are insisting.

The constitution is very clear on this point, said Roger Edde, a prominent businessman who is also a lawyer. It says that on the first round of the election, the winner must have two-thirds of those present. But there is no mention of a quorum. If no one is elected on the first round, Edd added, then whoever gets more than 50 percent of the votes will be elected.

Hezbollah and the pro-Syrian parties have been insisting on the two-thirds quarum because they feel confident that can intimidate enough members of parliament to stay home from the special session that will be called for the election, as happened earlier this week.

Fear of assassination has forced Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to literally camp out in his office for most of the past year.

After Ghanem's assassination last month, the U.S. embassy in Beirut issued a statement tacitly accusing Syria and Iran of masterminding the terror campaign. It is not a coincidence that these attacks target those figures who have been working to secure Lebanon's independence from renewed Syrian hegemony, embassy members said. "We note with concern that many Lebanese politicians allied with Syria have in fact warned that murder and violence would be the results of any effort to exercise genuine parliamentary democracy."

Those warnings continued this week.

They have prepared 21 cars, and are planning to kill several top leaders over the next two weeks, a prominent figure in the Cedars Revolution told Newsmax. I received a call on my cell phone a month ago, he said. They were laughing. You think you are protected in your bulletproof car? We will melt you into the pavement with our C4.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Wally: Syria and Hezbollah are killing us off
2007-10-22
In a especially candid interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Lebanese majority leader Walid Jumblatt accused Hezbollah of assassinating his colleagues, Hafez al-Assad of murdering his father, and described the struggle for a Democracy in Lebanon. "We are ahead of a crucial three weeks and our opponents, although they are members of parliament, they have other methods to deal with us. Three weeks ago we lost a partner (Antoine Ghanem) in the majority ... We were 69 then, now we are 68. If they can kill 4 more of us, we will be reduced as a majority, and we will not be able to vote for a free president that will abide by international law and resolutions."

"It is impossible to have good security in Lebanon, we are hiding in our rooms. Most of the MPs are in an annex of the Phoenecia hotel, they are not even able to open the windows because of possible sniping."

When asked "who is behind these assassinations", Jumblatt responded "Syria and its allies Hezbollah. I have no doubt about it. The tribunal will give its verdict next year, but until next year it is quite a long time, anything can happen."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hariri says Berri is the leader of Lebanon's opposition
2007-10-21
Parliamentary Majority leader Saad Hariri labeled Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri "leader of the opposition" and accused the Syrian regime of trying to topple Lebanon's democracy. In an interview with the Arabic-language edition of Newsweek, Hariri said "we should be extremely cautious in our discussions with leader of the opposition Nabih Berri."

"He was the sixth MP targeted by assassination. If this persists, the March 14 Movement would lose its majority in parliament," Hariri noted.
"To safeguard Lebanon's interest we need to engage in dialogue, the opposition is made up of Lebanese persons and the closer they are to us, the more they distance themselves from the Syrian regime" of President Bashar Asssad, Hariri noted.

The Assassination of MP Antoine Ghanem by a car bomb explosion on Sept. 19 was "the main topic of discussion" Hariri had with the White House, he said. "He was the sixth MP targeted by assassination. If this persists, the March 14 Movement would lose its majority in parliament," Hariri noted. "It is not mere coincidence that all the slain MPs belonged to the same (Anti-Syrian) political trend. The Syrians should understand that killing MPs would bear repercussions against them," he added.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanon shows U.N. evidence of Syrian involvement with Fatah al-Islam
2007-10-11
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora provided the U.N. and Arab League with evidence linking the Fatah al-Islam terrorists to the Syrian regime. Siniora sent U.N. chief Bank Ki-moon and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa latest updates on Fatah al-Islam's links with Syria, and Hizbullah's armament.

Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said at the end of a cabinet session on Tuesday evening that the memorandums contained "information obtained by Lebanese army intelligence services and the information department of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) about armament in the country and the situation at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in North Lebanon. The letters are aimed at giving an accurate image of what is happening in the country."

He said the government decided to refer the assassination of anti-Syrian MP Antoine Ghanem to the Judicial Council. Ghanem was killed in a car bomb in Beirut's Sin el-Fil neighborhood on September 19. Aridi said Saniora has asked Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar - which he recently visited -- to provide the Lebanese army, police as well as the government and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) with the "necessary support" to rebuild the Nahr al-Bared camp and allow its residents to recover their homes. Starting Wednesday, the displaced families will be allowed to return in groups of 100 families per day, UNRWA said. Some 30,000 refugees fled Nahr el-Bared during the battle between Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese army.

The repatriation is being organized by UNRWA in collaboration with both Lebanese and Palestinian groups. The Lebanese army has said the camp will be completely cleared of gunmen, unexploded shells, mines and booby traps before anyone returns, and the government has promised to rebuild devastated parts of Nahr el-Bared Aridi said the cabinet also agreed to a request by Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh to issue stamps in honor of sacrifices made by troops at Nahr al-Bared.

On the issue of Hizbullah's unlawful phone networking, Aridi said the government was waiting for confirmation that all lines - which run parallel to the state's phone system -- had been removed. Lebanese authorities in August revealed that the installation of the underground cables had been discovered in the south Lebanon as well as in Beirut and its suburbs.

Aridi also said that a committee had been set up to follow up on the fires that swept Lebanon earlier this month and study ways to deal with the "damaged areas." He said that Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa issued a decision on Monday "forbidding residents from using the areas hit by fire."
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