BEIRUT: Lebanese troops reinforced road junctions and official buildings in Beirut on Saturday and the government met to mull a response to the car bomb killing of a senior intelligence official opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Brigadier-General Wissam al-Hassan, who led an investigation that implicated Syria and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah in the assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, and seven other people were killed by the explosion in a central district of the capital yesterday afternoon.
Lebanese politicians accused Assad of being the attack, which deepened fears that the sectarian-tinged civil war in neighbouring Syria was being carried into Lebanon.
Hassan, a Sunni Muslim, had helped uncover a bomb plot that led to the arrest and indictment in August of a pro-Assad former Lebanese minister – a setback for Syrian influence in Lebanon.
Sunni Muslims took to the streets and burned tyres across Lebanon over yesterday night and today morning to protest against the bombing, which revived memories of the carnage of Lebanon’s own civil war. The blast also wounded about 80 people.
Protesters blocked roads to the international airport and in the northern, mostly-Sunni city of Tripoli. Rallies were also held and roads closed in the eastern Bekaa Valley and in the southern town of Sidon.
Soldiers and police guarded street corners in Beirut’s Ashrafiyeh, the mainly Christian district where the bomb exploded during rush hour, and at Martyrs’ Square in the centre.
The late Hariri’s son, Saad al-Hariri, accused Syria’s Assad of being behind the bombing. Lebanon’s opposition March 14 bloc called on Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government, which includes ministers from Hezbollah, to resign.
The head of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, Major-General Ashraf Rifi, described Hassan’s death as a “huge blow” and warned that further attacks were likely.
“We’ve lost a central security pillar,” he told Future Television. “Without a doubt, we have more sacrifices coming in the future. We know that, but we will not be broken.”
IRANIAN VISIT
More than 30,000 people have been killed in Syria since a Sunni-led popular uprising against Assad, a member of the Shi’ite-linked Alawite sect, broke out 19 months ago.
International powers fear the conflict could inflame rivalries across the region as it intensifies.
Lebanon’s religious communities are divided between those supporting Assad and those backing the rebels and the country had already felt the heat prior to yesterday’s bombing.
Sunnis and Alawites have clashed in Tripoli while the northern end of the Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria, has suffered from shelling and incursions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, whose country is a powerful backer of Assad and Hezbollah, condemned the bombing and said he planned to visit Beirut today.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry, in a statement on its website, suggested Israel was to blame for the attack. A senior Israeli official dismissed the suggestion as “beyond pathetic”.
Hassan, who had returned to Lebanon on Thursday night from Germany, had helped uncover many assassination attempts against anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon. He himself escaped several attempts on his life.
Two Syrian officers, including General Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s national security bureau, were indicted along with Lebanon’s former information minister Michel Samaha in August over a plot allegedly aimed at stoking violence in Lebanon.
The indictments were an unprecedented move against its more powerful neighbour, a dominant player in Lebanese affairs for decades.
As well as being the brains behind the Samaha investigation, Hassan led the investigation into Rafik Hariri’s murder seven years ago and uncovered evidence that implicated Syria and Hezbollah – a charge they both deny. An international tribunal accused several Hezbollah members of involvement in the murder.
The bombing also heightened concern among Western powers – who have strongly criticised Assad and called on him to quit – that the Syria war could ignite the region.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Hassan’s killing was “a dangerous sign that there are those who continue to seek to undermine Lebanon’s stability”. (Reuters)