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Iraq

There are many more names on the IMIS assassins’ blacklist

2020-07-17

[THEBAGHDADPOST] Three of Hisham al-Hashimi’s children and his distraught young wife watched as his bloodied, well perforated carcass was dragged from his car moments after masked men on cycle of violences shot him repeatedly at point-blank range. CCTV footage amply displays the cold-blooded professionalism of Hashimi’s killers, obviously experienced in what they were doing. One of Iraq’s foremost young intellectuals, Hashimi was targeted for being a leading expert on Iran-backed militias. He had received death threats from Kata’ib Hezbollah, and had been personally threatened by its front man Hussain Mounis. As one Iraq expert, Adel Bakawan, warned: "This may be the first prominent figure killed but it won’t be the last. There are other names on this blacklist. Hashimi had previously expressed admiration for the 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... Militia in Iraq and Syria (IMIS) paramilitary movement, but he was outraged when its snipers and button men killed upwards of 500 protesters in Iraq in the last three months of 2019. Hashimi perhaps signed his own death warrant by publishing a report demonstrating how hardliners (such as Kata’ib Hezbollah) loyal to Ayatollah Khamenei had come to dominate the IMIS, pushing aside moderates loyal to Ayatollah Sistani and Iraq. Assassination by button men on cycle of violences outside the victim’s home is a favored modus operandi for Iran-backed militias. Shiite activist and novelist Alaa Mashzub was rubbed out in Karbala in February 2019 after criticizing Ayatollah Khomeini on social media; button men murdered activists Abdul Quddus Qasim and lawyer Karar Adel in Amara in March 2020; TV correspondent Ahmad Abdelsamad and his cameraman Safaa Ghali were killed in January 2020 near a Basra cop shoppe when paramilitary button men fired on their car; photojournalist Ahmed al-Lami and Hisham Fares al-Adhami were rubbed out by snipers while covering Baghdad protests in 2019 (about 200 journalists have been killed in Iraq since 2003, many of them assassinated); a motorcyclist pumped bullets into the car of 22-year-old Iraqi social media star Tara Fares In September 2018, one of a series of murders of women including two others from the beauty industry, Rasha al-Hassan and Rafif al-Yasiri, and Basra activist Souad al-Ali — killed by a gunman as she approached her car. These same paramilitaries were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in post-2003 sectarian cleansing, often targeting Christian and Sunni families. Thousands were held for ransom, then tortured and killed by their kidnappers. Kata’ib Hezbollah accuses Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi of colluding with the Americans to murder their commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in the same dronezap in January this year that killed Quds Force commander Qassim Soleimani. Since Muhandis’s death, Tehran has been reorganizing Kata’ib Hezbollah as an elite terrorist force to strike Western targets; the group deliberately escalated attacks against US assets to embarrass and undermine Kadhimi. When Kata’ib Hezbollah fired rockets into the Green Zone near the US Embassy in Baghdad, Kadhimi ordered a raid on the group’s headquarters. Troops from the Counter-Terrorism Squad arrested 14 paramilitaries who had previously attacked the Green Zone and Baghdad airport. Immediately after the raid, a 30-vehicle armed column of paramilitaries entered the Green Zone and encircled the Counter-Terrorism Squad HQ with the aim of taking hostages until the detainees were released. As powerful IMIS advocates Nouri al-Maliki, Faleh al-Fayyadh and Hadi al-Amiri tried to mediate, the prime minister refused to comply. Instead he handed the detainees over to the IMIS security directorate, which promptly freed all but one of them — a calculated snub to Kadhimi. IMIS-aligned media outlets and politicians are aggressively denouncing the prime minister for launching the operation in the first place. IMIS expert Fanar Haddad has stated categorically that Hisham al-Hashimi’s killing was retaliation for the raid on Kata’ib Hezbollah. Given that Hashimi was advising the prime minister on how to address IMIS militancy, it was a chillingly brazen gesture of intent. Like Kata’ib Hezbollah’s raid on the Counter-Terrorism Squad HQ, this wasn’t a hidden crime; the IMIS wants Iraqis and their leaders to cower in terror, knowing it can murder anyone at any time. Hezbollah and Bashir al-Assad have assassinated many of Leb ...an Iranian colony 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 dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of 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... ’s most respected national figures — Rafiq Hariri, Gebran Tueni, Samir Kassir, Gen. Wissam al-Hassan — because they knew they would get away with it. The recent frightening escalation in physical attacks against activists, lawyers and journalists is a warning of how easily Lebanon could revert to those dark days. Hezbollah’s persecution of Shiite holy man, Sayyed Ali al-Amin, highlights this peril. Amin is an inspirational role model for the enlightened, anti-sectarian face of religion, but persistent death threats after his strident criticism of Hezbollah’s "policy of oppression and domination" forced him to flee his home town of Chakra. The latest phase of this vicious campaign is a Hezbollah-backed lawsuit citing Amin’s attendance at a conference in Bahrain at which Israelis happened to be present. The lawsuit accuses him of "attacking the resistance and its deaders on a permanent basis, inciting strife between sects, sowing discord and sedition, and violating the Sharia laws." If the Lebanese court system had any semblance of backbone or independence, those leveling such baseless, libelous, evil charges against a national hero would themselves face trial. In a state infiltrated at all levels by pro-Tehran bully boys, Prime Minister Kadhimi’s primary strength derives from the Iraqi street. Thousands of nationalist Iraqis expressed outrage at Hashimi’s death, particularly as members of the protest movement saw so many comrades murdered after denouncing the IMIS. When militias beholden to a hostile foreign power threaten to outgun the state, it is only with active international support (the West and Arab nations) and engagement by nationalist citizens that the balance can be swung back in favor of the forces of justice, order and accountable governance. Backing down would represent a catastrophic loss of face, and proof that all-powerful Iran-backed paramilitaries can murder and pillage with impunity. The deranged leaders of the IMIS and Hezbollah are so in thrall to their paymasters in Tehran that they can’t comprehend the courageous nationalism of their own compatriots; when they murdered 500 Iraqis, 5 million poured on the streets to denounce them. Ultimately we are faced with the existential question of who runs Iraq and Lebanon. With the IMIS and Hezbollah emerging supreme, if citizens and their friends overseas hope to prevent an eruption of killings, terrorism and paramilitary oppression, Hashimi’s murder must be a wake-up call. If the IMIS blacklist does indeed have many more names written on it, for Heaven’s sake let us not passively await the next CCTV video nasty or grim newspaper headlines to find out who.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Abdullah Azzam Brigades Threaten Hizbullah with 'Successive Rounds of Terrorism'

2014-07-02

[An Nahar] The Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades ... Leb's current al-Qaeda affiliate, named after a guy whose car the current head of al-Qaeda had boomed... on Tuesday demanded Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... to withdraw from Syria "before it is too late," vowing to carry out "successive terrorist acts until security is restored" in the war-torn neighboring country. "I tell Iran's party to quickly withdraw from Syria before it is too late," the Brigades' spokesperson Sheikh Sirajeddine Zouraykat wrote on his official account on social media website Twitter. "When we bombed — with God's help — the Iranian embassy, and then (Iran's) cultural center to secure victory for the oppressed in Syria and Leb and to respond to the aggression, they called this terrorism," he said. "And if terrorism is the answer to your crimes, expect more successive terrorist acts that will make you forget all previous rounds until security is restored in Syria," the Brigade's spokesperson warned. Zouraykat elaborated on what he considers to be the party's activities in Leb and Syria: "Hizbullah's terrorism in Leb was manifested in the attack on al-Taqwa and al-Salam mosques in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... (in northern Leb), in burning down the Bilal (bin Rabah) mosque in Abra (neighborhood in the southern city of Sidon), in killing sheikhs and youngsters on the streets, and in arbitrary arrests." Meanwhile, ...back at the revival hall, the pastor had finally been wrestled from the pulpit. Y'got the wrong guy! he yelled just before Sergeant Malone's billy club landed... the "terrorism" of Iran's party in Syria according to the Brigades was manifested in "killing women and kiddies in Aleppo, in besieging Eastern Ghouta (near Damascus), in occupying al-Qalamoun (on the border), in shelling peaceful citizens in southern Damascus, and in continuing to support (Syrian President) Bashar (Assad)." Zouraykat also considered that Hizbullah was behind the bombing attacks that targeted former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, former army chief Francois al-Hajj, late MP Walid Eido, journalist and activist Samir Kassir, slain chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces Wissam al-Hassan, former Finance Minister Mohammed Shatah, and "a long list that the Lebanese are aware of." The Abdullah Azzam Brigades had claimed the deadly attack that targeted the Iranian embassy in the southern suburbs of Beirut in November. At least 23 people were killed and 150 maimed in the Bir Hassan twin suicide kabooms. The bad boy group also claimed the two suicide kabooms that went off near an Iranian cultural center in Beirut's southern suburbs in February 2014. The blasts killed six people and maimed over 130 others. The Brigades have repeatedly called on Hizbullah to withdraw from Syria and the release of Islamist inmates in Roumieh prison in order to stop the attacks on the party's stronghold.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

PSP Demo Urges Syria Envoy Expulsion

2012-09-01

[An Nahar] The Progressive Socialist Party on Friday staged a demonstration demanding the expulsion of Syrian Ambassador to Leb Ali Abdul Karim Ali and the summoning of the Syrian officers who are "involved" in the case of former minister Michel Samaha. Members of the party's youth organization gathered at 7:00 p.m. at the Samir Kassir Garden in downtown Beirut under the slogan "In rejection of the massacres being committed against the Syrian people." The demonstrators carried the flags of Leb, the PSP and the Syrian revolution, in addition to banners that read, "The Spring of Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... Will Inevitably Arrive", "Syria and Leb are Two Peoples Against the Same Regime," and "The Expulsion of the Ambassador is a Lebanese Duty towards Syria's Children." The youth organizations of the March 14 forces on Wednesday also held a demonstration outside the foreign ministry to demand Ali's expulsion and criticize the performance of Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Jumblat In Demo vs.Syrian Regime: The People's Revolution Will Prevail

2012-02-23

PSP 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... declared on Wednesday his support for the Syrian revolution. While participating in the demonstration supporting the Syrian people, Jumblat said: "Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt prevailed, and we are a part of this Arab Spring and the Syrian people's revolution will prevail." He voiced his support for the Syrian people and all the detainees and missing, adding that "I am not here to talk about the government. We are a civil society and we have surpassed the parties. We see the sufferings of this people. " "The Syrian people's revolution will prevail eventually," Jumblat said. According to Al-Jadeed television, MP Walid Jumblat, the Minister of social affairs Wael Abou Faour, and MP Akram Chehayeb participated along with members of al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... and March 14 Those are the good guys, insofar as Leb has good guys... forces in a demonstration in solidarity with the Syrian people. The demonstration took place at the garden of Samir Kassir square in downtown Beirut. Al-Jadeed also reported that a "counter demonstration supporting the Syrian regime took place in Downtown Beirut, prompting the security forces to spread between the two demonstrations in order to prevent any festivities." Jumblat on Monday had described the regime's promise of reform as a "joke", slamming major powers' support for this "charade" where it has supplied the regime with arms, intelligence, and naval vessels.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Slain Lebanese security officer "possesed sensitive terrorism files"

2008-01-26

(KUNA) — A car packed with explosives blew up at the morning rush-hour in eastern Beirut on Friday killing an officer who "possessed sensitive files on terrorism" along with at least nine people and turning the location into a hairy scene dotted with shreds of human flesh. Major General Ashraf Riffi, Director-General of the Internal Security Force (ISF), also known as the police, confirmed in a statement to journalists after the blast that the car bomb explosion targetted Captain Wissam Eid "and a number of innocent people ... it constitutes a message to the internal force." Eid, who served in the intelligence (information) department of the ISF, was killed along with a bodyguard in the rumbling blast that hurled shreds of human flesh many meters away in the district of Hazmiyah during the morning high traffic, set scores of cars afire and inflicted heavy damage within a wide radius. Maj. Gen. Riffi said several people were wounded in the fiery blast and were whisked to nearby hospitals. "The martyr Eid had possessed very sensitive files related to terrorist explosions that occurred in Lebanon," the chief of the police said. Eid was reportedly involved in last summer's fighting that pitted the Lebanese government forces, both the ISF and the army, against a shodowy group known as Fatah Al-Islam in the refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared in northern Lebanon. The Lebanese forces crushed the militants' hideout and took over the camp following fierce fighting. The group's chief, Shaker Al-Absi, whose whereabouts have been unknown, has recently threatened revenge in remarks posted on the internet. Interior Minister Hassan Al-Sabaa told the press that Eid had been targeted with at least three botched bids on his life, and described the deadly attack as "intended to strike at the basic nerves of the Lebanese security system." A security source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the authorities detained several suspected persons for interrogation after the explosion that occurred at 10:15 a.m. (local time). The explosion whose sound echoed throughout the congested capital set many cars alight, sending black clouds of smoke billowing into the skies, while civil defense teams struggled for hours to put out blazes of the burning cars. The blast followed an explosion that occured in eastern Beirut on the 15th of this month, trageting a vehicle of the US embassy. An American was injured in the blast and several locals were killed. Last December a senior officer of the Lebanese Army was killed in a similar attack. Beirut has witnessed a wave of deadly bombs since assassination of the former premier, Rafic Al-Hariri, on Februaray 14, 2005. Several leading figures had been killed since the assassination of Al-Hariri — including journalist Samir Kassir, former Communist Party leader George Hawi, caretaker Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, MP Walid Eido and Brigadier General Francois Al-Hajj of the Lebanese Army.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Hezbollah involved in Lebanon assassinations: Jumblatt

2006-12-30

In other news, water is wet, but Walid gets points for speaking publicly. BEIRUT - Prominent Lebanese MP Walid Jumblatt has accused the Shia militant group Hezbollah of being involved in a string of political assassinations, according to an interview aired on Arab television. The accusations marked the first time that Jumblatt, a leading MP from the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, pointed the finger at the Teheran- and Damascus-backed group which is spearheading an opposition protest to topple the government. “In one manner or another, they (Hezbollah) are implicated in certain attacks, if not all,” Jumblatt told Al-Arabiya television late Thursday. “The fog over my eyes dissolved once and for all after the assassination of journalist and MP Gibran Tueni on December 12, 2005,” said the Druze chief, who has previously accused Syria of being involved in the killings. Six prominent anti-Syrian figures have been slain in the past two years. A UN investigation into the 2005 bomb blast that killed ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri has implicated senior Syrian officials and Lebanese accomplices. Jumblatt equally accused Hezbollah of fearing an extension of the UN probe into Hariri’s assassination that could cover other bomb and shooting attacks against outspoken Damascus critics. “Hezbollah pulled out of the government saying they were in favour of an international tribunal (in the Hariri slaying) but against any extension of the probe,” Jumblatt said, referring to the resignations of six pro-Syrian ministers, including two from Hezbollah, last month. “That is because in one way or another, they are implicated in the attacks that killed Tueni, Samir Kassir, Georges Hawi (all in 2005) and Pierre Gemayel (2006) and which targeted journalist May Chidiac and minister Elias Murr (2005),” Jumblatt said. Echoing an accusation voiced by anti-Syrian Communications Minister Marwan Hamadeh on Thursday, Jumblatt said the “the car bomb that targeted Marwan (on October 1, 2004) was prepared in the southern suburbs of Beirut,” a Hezbollah stronghold. Hariri’s assassination “was prepared high up,” Jumblatt said in an apparent reference to Syria, “but the other crimes, or some of them, took place here” in Lebanon. “There, I don’t want to say more, but I said it.”

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Hamadeh to sue Hezbollah for 'Inciting' his Assassination

2006-12-29

Lebanon's Communications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, a key member in the anti-Syrian majority coalition, has vowed to sue Hezbollah and its television mouthpiece, Al-Manar, on charges of "inciting" his assassination. Hamadeh, a key member in the anti-Syrian majority coalition, has vowed to sue Hezbollah and its television mouthpiece, Al-Manar, on charges of "inciting" his assassination. Hamadeh was seriously wounded in a booby-trapped car explosion on Oct. 1, 2004. Hamadeh, who was seriously wounded in a booby-trapped car explosion on Oct. 1, 2004, said Wednesday evening that Hezbollah also "covered up" the attempt on his life. He said Al-Manar's news broadcast on Wednesday evening targeted him with "allegations and false charges that had been repeatedly spread by Syrian intelligence for months." Based on that, Hamadeh announced, "I will sue Hezbollah on charges of inciting my assassination and attempting to terrorize me politically and psychologically." He also said Hezbollah had "covered up those who tried to assassinate me in October 2004. The car which targeted me was booby trapped in an area controlled by Hezbollah and its license plate was forged at a workshop in the same area." Al-Manar's report claimed Hamadeh had "revealed" to U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman the hideout of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during the 34-day war between the Shiite group and Israel last summer. Hamadeh said he would respond to Al-Manar's allegations through "the judiciary I will deliver a recorded video copy of Al-Manar's report to the international investigation committee" which is probing the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes. Hamadeh's statement was seen as a challenge to Hezbollah's reported rejection of the Special International Tribunal for Lebanon to try suspects in the Hariri murder. Hamadeh, Defense Minister Elias Murr and TV anchorwoman May Chidiac suffered serious wounds in separate attempts on their lives by booby-trapped car blasts that are believed to be related to the Hariri assassination. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, MP-Journalist Gebran Tueni, former Lebanese Communist Party Leader George Hawi and journalist Samir Kassir have all been killed in separate attacks that are believed to be linked to the wave of assassinations targeting anti-Syrian figures. Hezbollah, which has been leading an open-ended protest to topple Premier Fouad Siniora's majority government since Dec.1, reportedly wants the international tribunal's bylaws amended to limit its powers to the Hariri assassination, without having the authority to look into the other crimes.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria: Dissidents Say Damascus Behind Lebanese Minister's Slaying

2006-11-24

(AKI) - Former Syrian government minister Ahmad Abu Daleh and one of the country's more prominent dissidents makes no secret of who he thinks was behind the assassination of Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel. Wednesday's killing "is a fundamental component of the Syrian regime's hegemonic attitude," Abu Daleh said in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI). Abu Saleh, who currently lives in the Czech Republic, accuses Syrian president Basher al-Assad's government of having a hand in the murder of other anti-Syrian Lebanese political figures. These include former prime minister Rafik Hariri, (murdered in Feb 2005), journalist Samir Kassir (June 2005), ex-Communist leader George Hawi (June 2005) and Parliamentarian Gebran Tueni (December 2005). Abu Saleh a Baath Party leader during Syria's shot-lived union with Egypt (1958-1961) told AKI he has survived three attempts by Syria's current rulers to kill him. Other Syrian dissidents have also pointed the finger against the government for Gemayel's murder. The National Salvation Front's deputy president Abd al-Halim Khaddam and the observer-general of the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanuni have both blamed the authorities in Damascus for the murder. The killing is "a link in the chain of murders that aim to detabilise Lebanon and hence prevent the stting up of an international tribunal to try those [included Syrian security officials] suspected of having killed Hariri," Khaddam said. A foreign-based group representing six dissident political parties the Syrian Democratic Alliance in a statement released in Washington also added its voice to those blaming Damascus.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Behind Lebanon's Unwillingness to Implement 1559

2006-07-31

If you are like me, you're wondering why Lebanon failed to implement 1559. Well, here is some insight into the reason. Incidentially, prominent pro-democracy figures in Lebanon have been assassinated since the Cedar Revolution of 2004: Samir Kassir, Edmond Naim (died of "old age"), and Gebran Tuemi. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch has criticized the meeting between Gen. Michel Aoun and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, saying it could delay the implementation of an international decision that calls on Hizbullah to disarm. Speaking at the Foreign Press Center in Washington, Welch said the U.S. viewed the meeting between Aoun and Nasrallah as a discussion between two political currents, and not a government discussion. But when asked if he believed that the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1559 has been undermined by the statement of cooperation between Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, Welch said: "We are concerned about any understandings, whatever their status, that would appear to postpone such a decision." Earlier this week, Hizbullah and the FPM issued a 10-point joint statement of cooperation stating that holding arms was an honorable and sacred way for a resistance group to defend its occupied land. The two parties also said that the Lebanese should take responsibility for protecting Lebanon especially that Israel occupies the Shabaa Farms, detains Lebanese resistance fighters and threatens the country. Welch reiterated Washington's position on Hizbullah, saying the Shiite party is considered "terrorist" under American law. "It receives foreign funding and it tends to respond to foreign guidance," he said. The U.S. official said Washington objected to comments by some Lebanese politicians that have justified Hizbullah's "terrorist actions" committed in the past, such as the taking of hostages. Asked if he was referring to Aoun, Welch said, "yes." Aoun reportedly had said that Hizbullah and the FPM were the only two parties in Lebanon who were not involved in mass murders during the country's 1975-1990 year civil war. "American citizens have suffered at the hands of this organization (Hizbullah) and that's why we consider it a terrorist organization, and there is no reason in our view why there should be any excuse or any loophole for them to change their behavior and disarm, as according to the rules of the international community as expressed in 1559," said Welch. Welch, who visited Lebanon last month, said Washington deals with the established institutions of the government. "And we ask them to respect the will of the international community." He said the U.S. administration understands the need for the Lebanese to have a dialogue with Hizbullah, but he stressed that such a dialogue should be directed toward the implementation of UN Resolution 1559.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Slain Journalist's Wife Blames Syria For Murder

2006-07-05

Beirut, 5 July (AKI) - The wife of Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir who was killed in a car bomb explosion in June 2005 has accused the Syrian and Lebanese "police regime that for decades was active in Lebanon" of being behind the attack. Gisele al-Khuri's made the remarks to Adnkronos International (AKI) in an interview on Wednesday when a French judge leading an investigation into Kassir's murder arrived in Beirut. The judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere is scheduled to meet Lebanese judicial authorities during the visit in his first visit to Lebanon since being appointed to head the probe last year. Shortly after her husband's death on 2 June, Khoury asked magistrates in Paris to investigate the attack. "In Lebanon the investigations could face a 'cover-up' so I decided it would be better for a truly independent inquiry to take place," Khoury, who works as a presenter for pan-Arab news channel Al-Arabiya told AKI. Kassir, who also had French citizenship was known for his anti-Syrian editorials published in the daily, an-Nahar.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon Politicians in Battle for Their Lives

2005-12-21

(Sapa-AFP) -- A sleek official-looking convoy rolls up in front of Beirut's Maronite patriarchate. No-one emerges. Seconds later a lone, humdrum jeep pops up. And out steps Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. Such fake convoys are just one of the methods used by Lebanese politicians attempting to outwit potential attackers who have reportedly already compiled hit lists of their next targets. Even the most sophisticated equipment and armoured convoys have been incapable of preventing targeted assassinations against critics of Syria - the last being parliamentarian and press magnate Gibran Tueni a week ago. "The rhythm of the attacks is scary. We hardly have the time to bury a martyr, before another one falls," said Maronite Catholic Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir. The 85-year-old cardinal, a vocal critic of Syria's presence in Lebanon whose own name appeared on the alleged hit-lists, has also used similar dummy convoys and army helicopters for his movements. For some, the only option in a climate of fear that has seen 15 attacks and political killings since October 2004 last year has been to barricade themselves at remote mountain retreats or leave the country altogether. Figures critical of Syria's role in Lebanon have adopted tight measures or stayed abroad like Saad Hariri, son and political heir to slain former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. But even pro-Syrian figures, such as Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Shi'a Muslim group Hezbollah, and Nabih Berri, the powerful parliament speaker and chief of the rival Shi'a Amal movement, have restricted their movements. International pressure after the murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri in October led to the arrest of top security officials as well as the withdrawal of Syrian forces after nearly three decades in their tiny neighbour. But as international and Lebanese investigators pursued the probe into Hariri's killing, the bombing campaign continued. Tueni was killed the morning after he arrived from Paris, where he had been staying for security reasons. Powerful Druze leader MP Walid Jumblatt, long retrenched in his mountainous home southeast of Beirut, has warned of more attacks as "the objective is to kill enough MPs to make the country impossible to rule." Samir Geagea, the head of the Christian Lebanese Forces party, has mostly remained in his private home in the Cedar mountains in northern Lebanon. At Tueni's funeral, Geagea arrived at the Greek Orthodox cathedral in downtown Beirut in a small, regular car closely followed by an army of bodyguards. Christian leader Michel Aoun has been also retreated to his villa in Rabiyeh, an exclusive residential hilltop overlooking the capital. Even companies and malls have been hiring private security agencies. "In general, cement blocks are placed around buildings and cars are prohibited from parking close by," the head of a security company who did not wish to be identified said. "There is sophisticated equipment to catch explosive materials, but the assassinations are taking place outside secured premises," he added. He noted that Hariri's convoy had been secured with an extremely sophisticated jamming system and that Tueni's car was an armoured vehicle. "It did not prevent Hariri's car from being blown up by remote-control, according to the report of the UN commission of inquiry. "And it did not prevent Tueni's car from being thrown into a ravine and being burned," he said. Fear has also spread among journalists after the assassination of Tueni and An Nahar editorial writer Samir Kassir, as well as the bombing attack that maimed May Chidiac, a star newscaster for the leading LBCI television. "I only use taxis, and I am still afraid. We are forced to be constantly on the move and we do not have any sophisticated protection system," one An Nahar journalist said on condition of anonymity. Marcel Ghanem, a prominent LBCI talk-show star, said the channel had adopted security measures for homes as well as means of transportation and communication. "Everyone is a target," he said.

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Iraq

Breaking The Assassins

2005-12-14

By David Ignatius Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A29 This is the time of the assassins in the Arab world. They're a way of life, aren't they? On Monday they killed a brave Lebanese journalist who dared to tell the truth about Syria. This week in Iraq they will try to kill people who want to vote. They kill wives to intimidate their husbands. They kill children to frighten their parents into silence. Their power is the ability to create raw fear. It's why they call it "terrorism." The basic aim is to impose your will onto someone else. The terrs do it, whether Zark's Islamic brownshirts or Sammy's Baathists, or the original brownshirts smashing things and bullying, or Mao's Red Guards, or Torquemada's inquisitors. It takes the place of discussion and it takes the place of persuasion; it's the dialogue of the knout, the knife, and the gun. They're right, you're wrong, so shut the hell up and do as you're told. The shame for America isn't that we have tried to topple the rule of the assassins but that we have so far been unsuccessful. We've been working on it, despite the ankle-biters along the way. We thought we were cracking the old web of terror when America invaded Iraq in 2003, but it's still there, in the shadows of the shadows. George W. Bush gets a lot of things wrong, but he knows that he's fighting the assassins. On days like these, I'm glad that he is such a stubborn man. That's making the assumption that stubborness is the same as fixity of purpose. People are usually considered "stubborn" when they're wrong. I've not yet considered Bush to be "stubborn." What is this struggle about? Listen to some Arab voices. Yesterday the front page of the Beirut daily An Nahar carried an open letter from the Syrian-born Lebanese poet known as "Adonis," perhaps the most famous writer in the Arab world. It was written to the paper's celebrated editor, Ghassan Tueni, whose outspoken son Gebran had been murdered the previous day by a car bomb. "We are witnessing the destruction of the soul and the spirit," wrote the poet, whose real name is Ali Ahmed Said. The people who killed Gebran want to create "a temple of fear." That's the temple where lives oppression. It's the home of Baathism, it's the home of Salafism, of fascism, communism, all the other nasty ism's that thrive in the absence of personal liberty. Only when people become individuals, rather than members of the faceless masses, does the temple crumble. And even when it's crumbled, there's always somebody who wants to build a new one. The headline atop the newspaper's front page said this: "Gebran didn't die and an-Nahar will continue." For a paper that had already lost its fearless columnist Samir Kassir to a car bomb in June, it was a defiant statement to the assassins: Kill us all. We aren't going to stop publishing the truth. Only defiance works, even if it kills you. Compliance leads you into the temple, where there's an altar waiting to sacrifice you to the Moloch of Certainty. I spoke yesterday with Hisham Melhem, the paper's Washington bureau chief. His voice was cracking with emotion as he spoke of his colleagues: "I shudder when I think of the courage of Gebran and Samir. They knew they were dead men walking. But they were never intimidated." Of course they were intimidated. They were probably scared when they got up in the morning and scared when they went to sleep at night. They lived in a country where the worshippers of Moloch speak casually of their certainties and where victims have been sacrificed to the god for years. But they, unlike the idolators, were determined to be free men, rather than slaves, whether to Syrian satraps or to abstract ideology. Amid the Bush administration's mistakes and lies about Iraq over the past three years, it's easy to lose sight of what is at stake in this battle. But this week brings it back to square one: It's about breaking the power of the assassins. Got that hit in a Bush, I guess, but you've come around to the core issue. I guess that's something. The Baath Party in Iraq ruled by its sheer brutality. It was the party of mass graves, videotaped cable whippings, amputations, tongue-cutting, systematic rape, and other forms of sadism. If Bush had to look in every corner to try and find causi belli, then more power to him. I gathered reports from Iraqi dissidents and human rights workers in the early 1990s, when I was researching my novel about Iraq, "The Bank of Fear." These stories are sickening to recount, even now: The children of Shiite rebels in southern Iraq, dropped from helicopters to terrify the parents; dissidents who had nails driven into their heads; and prisoners beaten with metal cables until they collapsed or died. At Saddam Hussein's trial last week, a woman was speaking about how she had been beaten with those cables. Watching his arrogant scorn for the testimony of his victims, I remembered what the war is about. Some of us make it a point not to forget. The Baath Party in Syria has governed much the same way, though it saved its worst brutality for neighboring Lebanon. That could be because they also control the news coming out of their country very closely. Truth is, you don't know what we're going to find until we're in there. That'll be prior to 9-11-06. The Syrians maintained their mandate by demonstrating that they were prepared to kill anyone who got in their way: a president, a prime minister, a religious leader, a journalist. The price of speaking out was death. That was the message: This is the land of death. Enter into this theater of violence and we will swallow you up. Bow down to the Moloch of Certainty or die! And even if you do, be prepared to die anyway. I think of my friend and teacher, Ghassan Tueni, who is grieving for his son today. When he received an honorary doctorate at the American University of Beirut last June, Tueni recalled the time he spent in prison in the late 1940s for defying the censors and repressors of the day. He read a copy of Socrates that had been smuggled into his cell and decided he would pursue a kind of Socratic journalism that would engage in a dialogue with readers and incite them to discover the truth. "I have to say, with much sorrow, that much of what the Arab world suffers from is largely due to the fact that neither our diplomacy nor our press has dared, or even been allowed, to tell the people the truth about our state of being and where we stand in the world," Tueni said at the end of that speech. But that wasn't true. He did dare. And his son's car went boom. Another human sacrifice. People like the Tuenis who refuse to be intimidated should inspire the rest of us. So should the millions of Iraqis who will vote tomorrow. They are trying to break the culture of intimidation and death. Americans should feel proud to be on their side.

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