...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
WallyJumblat
...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
spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
and its ally, Hezbollah, rushed fighters to support him. Russia later joined with a scorched earth campaign of
...
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."
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir