Word: syrians
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ASSASSINATED. Pierre Gemayel, 34, outspoken anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister of Industry and son of former President Amin Gemayel; after three gunmen shot him at point-blank range as he was driving on a busy street; in Beirut. A rising political star in the Christian Phalange Party, founded by his grandfather and namesake, he was the fifth anti-Syrian leader in the past two years to be murdered. Parliament member Saad Hariri, son of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who was killed last year, vowed to find and prosecute those responsible...
...Iranian leaders, meanwhile, will host Iraq's President Jalal Talabani - with Syrian leaders possibly in attendance - on Saturday, in an initiative designed to showcase Iran's intention of playing a positive role in Iraq; the meeting will also not so subtly make the point that Tehran doesn't need Washington's permission to get involved. But even though Iran traditionally wields greater influence over the Shi'ite parties that dominate Iraq's government, it may have little to offer in the immediate crisis of sectarian escalation. Likewise Syria, whose contribution would be largely to tighten border security to prevent...
...Saudis, in particular, are alarmed at Iran's spreading influence in Lebanon. "There has been a serious increase in [Iranian and Syrian] activity in the rearming of HIzballah," says Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security advisor who is managing director of the Riyadh-based Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a consulting group that advises the Saudi government. Obaid contends that "a huge stream of trucks" has been crossing the border from Syria into Lebanon, ferrying thinly disguised shipments of arms...
...Iranian and Syrian activity is taking place against the backdrop of growing instability within Lebanon's government and Saturday's upcoming vote among government ministers to bring the assassins of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri before an international tribunal - a process that is expected to implicate high-level Syrian officials. Hizballah pulled out of the country's coalition government recently after its push for greater representation was rebuffed; many observers viewed the push for effectve veto power as motivated by its concern that prime minister Fouad Siniora would try to begin the process of Hizballah's disarmament that...
...Early-'80s Lebanon ought to have served as a cautionary tale heading off the U.S.'s more recent adventure in Iraq. In 1982, the U.S. backed an Israeli plan to invade Lebanon and destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization, kick out Syrian troops and install a pro-Western, Israel-friendly government led by Lebanese Maronite Christian leader Bashir Gemayel. Israel drove out the PLO, only to start negotiating with Yasser Arafat after a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza trip a few years later. Suspected Syrian agents assassinated Bashir Gemayel days before his presidential inauguration. His supporters retaliated...