Lebanon has record of assassinations

[Rami_s]

Lebanon has record of assassinations

"Associated Press"

Two presidents were killed by bombs just before or after their inaugurations. One prime minister was blown up in a helicopter; another was killed four months after leaving office in a suicide truck bombing.

At least 35 Lebanese politicians, clerics and journalists have been struck down by assassins in Lebanon's 63 years of independence.

Thursday's funeral for Pierre Gemayel, the industry minister who was assassinated in a bold daytime shooting on Tuesday, was an all too familiar scene: Hundreds of thousands of people following a flag-draped coffin and rallying to speeches mixing grief with defiance against the killers.

"The season of farewells is long and the killers' appetite is big," wrote editor-in-chief Rafik Khoury in Thursday's edition of Al-Anwar.

Gemayel's assassination has dramatically raised the risk of turmoil in Lebanon, which the United States considers a key front in its attempt to stem Syrian and Iranian influence in the Middle East.


Many fear Lebanon's political power struggle could move into the streets, at a time when the country is the most polarized since the 1975-90 civil war — divided between anti-Syrian Christians and Sunni Muslims and pro-Syrian Shiites. Each community accounts for roughly a third of the population of 4 million.

Gemayel, 34, a rising star of a prominent political clan, was the fifth member of his family to die violently, and the sixth anti-Syrian figure killed in the past two years. His uncle, president-elect Bashir Gemayel, was killed in a bomb blast in 1982 only days before his inauguration.

The assassinations began in the early 1950s when Prime Minister Riyad Solh, a leader of Lebanon's struggle for independence from France, was gunned down in Amman, Jordan.

In February 1975, Maarouf Saad, a Sunni Muslim parliament member, was shot to death while leading a fishermen's demonstration in the southern port city of Sidon. His killing was one of the sparks of the civil war that broke out two months later when Pierre Gemayel's grandfather survived an assassination attempt on April 13, 1975.

Assassins struck again and again during the civil war when the country's Christians and Muslims turned on each other, drawing support from different foreign powers.

In 1977, gunmen shot dead Kamal Jumblatt, leader of the Druse community in the Druse-controlled Chouf mountains.

The next year, Tony Franjieh, a Maronite Catholic and oldest son of former President Suleiman Franjieh, was gunned down at his home in the mountain resort of Ehden along with his wife, their 3-year-old daughter, and 30 aides and guards.

In 1987, Prime Minister Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim, was killed by a bomb planted under the seat of the army helicopter that he was flying in. On Independence Day 1989, President Rene Mouawad was assassinated after only 17 days in office.

Very few killers have ever been brought to justice.

Lebanon is "unrivaled by any other country in the world" in the number of unpunished killings, former Prime Minister Salim Hoss wrote in the leading newspaper An-Nahar on Thursday. Hoss himself survived a car bombing in 1984.

The end of the civil war in 1990 brought a respite in political killings. When former Christian militia leader Elie Hobeika was killed by a car bomb in January 2002, it was seen as a settling of past scores.

But a new chapter of political assassinations began with the massive truck bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others in February 2005. Hariri's death sparked huge protests against Syria, which was widely seen as culpable. Syria denied involvement, but was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year presence.

Since then, a series of unexplained bombings have killed or maimed six anti-Syrian politicians and journalists. In September 2005, a bomb blasted prominent Christian TV anchorwoman May Chidiac in her car, tearing off an arm and a leg.

The anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon blames the Syrian regime for those killings, a charge Syria denies. A U.N.-created international tribunal is expected to be set up to try suspects in Hariri's assassination and the subsequent bombings.

[abousoun]

we break all kinds of records!!!...LONG LIVE LEBANON ... honestly only this record we are not proud of and don't want to break