Lebanon’s main anti-Syrian coalition called Saturday for the ouster of the country’s Hezbollah-led government, a day after the assassination of a senior intelligence official heightened political and sectarian tensions across the country.
Leaders of the March 14 alliance have accused the Syrian government of responsibility for the bombing in Beirut that killed Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, the head of the Internal Security Forces’ information department, on a quiet street in Christian East Beirut outside one of several safe houses he maintained. Hassan had been credited with exposing Syrian-led plots to plant bombs in Lebanon and was a close friend and ally of Sunni political leader Saad al-Hariri, a central figure in Lebanon’s anti-Syrian camp.
The country was on edge as Sunnis took to the streets in several areas to burn tires and block roads in protest of the killing, which has stirred dark memories of a wave of similar assassinations of anti-Syrian figures from 2005 to 2008.
A bigger test of the momentum building behind the opposition’s efforts to oust the government will come at Hassan’s funeral, to be held here Sunday at the downtown location housing the tomb of Hariri’s father, former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The elder Hariri’s 2005 death, also in a bombing blamed on Syria, forced Syrian troops to leave Lebanon, then plunged the country into three years of turmoil.
The March 14 coalition, named after the date of a huge rally after Hariri’s death, called on citizens to make Sunday a “day of rage” against “the butcher Bashar al-Assad and the black regime that rules Syria.”
Although Syria was blamed for this latest bombing, the opposition is focusing its attention on Syria’s chief Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, whose political and military dominance over the country is deeply resented by many Sunnis and Christians.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lebanese-opposition-seeks-ouster-of-hezbollah-led-government-in-wake-of-killing/2012/10/20/bc90b98c-1af5-11e2-ad4a-e5a958b60a1e_story.html?hpid=z1
Leaders of the March 14 alliance have accused the Syrian government of responsibility for the bombing in Beirut that killed Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, the head of the Internal Security Forces’ information department, on a quiet street in Christian East Beirut outside one of several safe houses he maintained. Hassan had been credited with exposing Syrian-led plots to plant bombs in Lebanon and was a close friend and ally of Sunni political leader Saad al-Hariri, a central figure in Lebanon’s anti-Syrian camp.
The country was on edge as Sunnis took to the streets in several areas to burn tires and block roads in protest of the killing, which has stirred dark memories of a wave of similar assassinations of anti-Syrian figures from 2005 to 2008.
A bigger test of the momentum building behind the opposition’s efforts to oust the government will come at Hassan’s funeral, to be held here Sunday at the downtown location housing the tomb of Hariri’s father, former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The elder Hariri’s 2005 death, also in a bombing blamed on Syria, forced Syrian troops to leave Lebanon, then plunged the country into three years of turmoil.
The March 14 coalition, named after the date of a huge rally after Hariri’s death, called on citizens to make Sunday a “day of rage” against “the butcher Bashar al-Assad and the black regime that rules Syria.”
Although Syria was blamed for this latest bombing, the opposition is focusing its attention on Syria’s chief Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, whose political and military dominance over the country is deeply resented by many Sunnis and Christians.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lebanese-opposition-seeks-ouster-of-hezbollah-led-government-in-wake-of-killing/2012/10/20/bc90b98c-1af5-11e2-ad4a-e5a958b60a1e_story.html?hpid=z1
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