Word: syrian
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...boiling, as a Lebanese friend called to tell me. Over the weekend, Hizballah announced it would defy a government ban and hold mass, open-ended demonstrations until the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora resigns - a slow-rolling coup d'etat, if you like. Then on Tuesday, the anti-Syrian minister Pierre Gemayel was assassinated. His father, Amin Gemayel, is the pro-American former president, his grandfather was the founder of the Christian Phalange party, and you can count on his assassination having momentous political consequences for Lebanon. I asked my friend what happens if the government doesn't give...
...tribunal to try the suspects accused of assassinating former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005. Neither Syria nor Hizballah will stand for a tribunal, believing it would be little more than a U.S. and French show trial intended to isolate them. And that's not to mention that several Syrian officials are actually implicated in Hariri's murder...
...Syria, its interests in Lebanon may not be identical to Hizballah's, but they're just as vital. You have to go back to 1982 to understand what's at stake for Syria. On February 2 the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood seized Hama, one of the country's largest cities. Then Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad (the current president's father), convinced his regime was about to fall to the Islamic opposition, ordered his Special Forces to level Hama. Some 35,000 people were killed, most of them hostages. In the aftermath, what surprised and shook Assad was his discovery that...
...killing on Tuesday of industry minister and anti-Syrian legislator Pierre Gemayel is a stark reminder that Lebanon's politicians remain as vulnerable as ever despite an array of security precautions. Some spend most of their time in well-protected homes surrounded by sealed-off streets; others rely on armed bodyguards or have switched smoked-glass limousines for nondescript vehicles or armor-plated SUVs. Mosbah Ahdab, a Sunni legislator from Tripoli and a member of the anti-Syrian parliamentary bloc, has lived under the threat of assassination for more than two years. "I take precautions," he says in an interview...
...Gemayel's murder falls on those who would most benefit from instability in Lebanon. Siniora's allies blame Syria, whom they also accuse of assassinating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. Since Hariri's death, a bombing campaign has killed or injured a series of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists. The last murder, of newspaper publisher Gebran Tueni, took place in December of last year...