Terror in Beirut: Suspicions surround Syria and Israel
Beirut (AsiaNews) - Lebanon's security services are leaving no stone unturned, including tracks leading to Syrian or Israeli involvement in yesterday's terrorist attack which destroyed a part of the Ashrafieh district and killed eight people, among them security forces chief, Gen. Wissam al-Hasan.
In comments published this morning
in the As-Safir newspaper, the head of the security forces, Ashraf Rifi, said
that "all options are open, but we are looking for tangible
evidence." He
admitted that the killing of al-Hasan can be tied to the arrest of former
minister Michel Samaha, who has close ties with Damascus, but also pointed out
that the terrorist act may be a response to the unveiling of an Israeli spy
network in
Lebanon, or the hunt for terrorist cells in the country.
Wissam
al-Hasan (pictured) is the most prominent victim of the eight people killed
after a powerful explosion (60-70kg of explosives) in a street adjacent to Sassine
square, that left 78 people injured and extensive damage to buildings .
Al-Hasan had returned to Lebanon
the day before and no one knew of his arrival. His
movements were always preceded by communiqués to throw would-be attackers off
track. A
brilliant analyst, and young (47 years old), al-Hasan was to succeed Rifi in
2013. Knowing
that he was a key target, he took every precautions. His
wife and two children had been transferred to Paris.
The
general is credited with having dismantled pro-Israeli, pro-Syrian and Salafi cells
of espionage and terrorism.
Last
night, the Druze Walid Jumblatt and Sunni Saad Hariri immediately pointed the
finger at Syria, as principal author of the attack. The
Sunni population has now launched protests in several cities of Lebanon:
Beirut, Saida, Bekaa, Tripoli, Kamed el-Loz, Bire.
The assassination of Wissam
al-Hasan risks creating a deeper furrow between the Lebanese communities,
already divided between those who support the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
and those who want his departure from the scene.
The
Sassine square car bomb (but intelligence has not excluded the possibility of a
suicide bomber) seems to confirm fears that the Syrian civil war can spread to
Lebanon and the region.
Yesterday's
massacre came just as UN peace envoy Lahdar Brahimi, was in Damascus, groping
for a truce on the occasion of Eid, which begins Oct. 26. He
even got Iran - Syria's major sponsor - to accept a possible fall of Assad,
provided it was through elections.
The international
community unanimously condemned the attack that has attempted to
"destabilize Lebanon." Statements
of condemnation and condolences emerged from the UN Security Council, the
European Union, Canada, Brazil, USA, France.
The Vatican, through press
office director Fr. Lombardi,
condemned the "absurd murderous violence" and appealed that it not become
"an opportunity to foster further violence." Only
a month ago Benedict XVI paid a visit to Beirut, pointing to Lebanon as a model
of coexistence between religions and ethnicities, important for the Middle East
and the entire world.
The Maronite
Patriarch Beshara Rai, condemned the "criminal acts that remind us of days
we thought long behind us." From
the Vatican, where he is participating in the Synod on the New Evangelization,
he urged all Lebanese to remain "united against the forces of evil that want
to create dissension among us" and to "preserve Lebanon as a model of
coexistence."
Even
Hezbollah - suspected by many Lebanese as the authors of the attack - condemned
the crackdown, expressing "great shock at this terrible crime of terror." Syria,
for its part, denounced the massacre as "vile",
"unjustifiable" and "terrorist." Iran
today condemned the terrorist explosion which "seeks to create divisions
between the different Lebanese groups, to the detriment of the interests of
Lebanon." "Without
a doubt - continues the statement of the Foreign Ministry - the main enemy of
the Lebanese people is the Zionist regime."
This
morning, Marwan Charbel, Lebanese minister of the interior, revealed that
al-Hasan had received death threats long before he revealed the Samaha affair.
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