Beirut bomb kills former prime minister
Ex-Lebanese PM Hariri killed in Beirut motorcade blast
Hariri: Vision of prosperous Lebanon
Huge blast kills Lebanese ex-PM: Previously unknown group claims responsibility
U.S. Withdraws Ambassador From Syria
This feels like deja vu all over again. Twenty years ago, I lived and worked at a private school on the island of Cyprus. A large percentage of our students were from Lebanon, most from Beirut. At that time, during the height of the Lebanese Civil War, growing up in Beirut was akin to growing up in the bowels of Hell. I taught 15-year-old boys who had never known a day’s peace until they arrived at our school in Nicosia. Some of these boys had been carrying Kalashnikovs when they were 11 or 12. I grew up in northern Minnesota, where my idea of violence was a snowball fight. These kids grew up with the real thing.
If you were on the east side of the island, Beirut was about 150 miles away. If the wind was blowing from the east, one could have sworn that it was possible to hear the artillery and mortar fire taking place in and around Beirut.
Bomb threats, not an unusual occurence given our obvious target as an American school in the Middle East, involved nothing more than sheer terror for our Lebanese students. I suppose when you grow up with homes, people, and building going “BOOM”, a bomb threat is no idle joke. When the occasional bomb did go off in Nicosia (this was the Middle East, after all), calming down our Lebanese students took some doing.
With the end of the civil war in Lebanon, no country was more relieved than Israel. Finally, it’s northern border was quiet. Now, fully engulfed in dealing with it’s Palestinian problem (and finally experiencing some success), the last thing Israel needs is a restive neighbor to the north. Lebanon may well be on the verge of another violent, bloody civil war.
Lebanon’s army began deploying patrols and setting up checkpoints as tension rose in the hours following the car bombing that killed Hariri.
An army statement said “the army leadership announced a general alert for all units of the Lebanese army. Likewise, the fighting readiness was raised to the greatest degree.”
Earlier Monday, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the explosion that killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri proves that some groups - including countries such as Lebanon and Syria - are trying to destabilize the region and prevent democracy from reaching the Arab world….
The blast “proves that there are organizations and countries, such as Syria and Lebanon, striving to undermine the stability in the region and prevent democratization in the Arab world,” the radio quoted Shalom as saying.
Lebanon’s official news agency, quoting a statement from American University Hospital in Beirut, said that Hariri arrived dead at the hospital, his body mutilated in the massive explosion.
An unknown group claimed responsibility Monday for the assassination, saying Hariri was killed in a suicide attack and promising more attacks.
Al-Jazeera satellite television aired a video of a bearded man wearing a white turban and a black robe saying he belonged to Support and Jihad in Syria and Lebanon, a previously unheard of group.
“We have carried out a resounding martyrdom operation,” said the man, who described Hariri as a tyrant. “It (the attack) will be an introduction to several martyrdom operations against infidels, renegades and tyrants.”
It would appear that militant, indiscriminately violent Islamofascism is a trend that never really goes out of style. It’s simply a travelling road show. Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, now Lebanon…when it plays out there, it will hit the road again, no doubt popping up in some Third World hell-hole teetering on the brink of anarchy and complete chaos.
There is also the specter of Syria. Convinced by the US government that it would be in their best interest to stop the overt support of terrorist attacks against Israel, is Syria, which for all intents and purposes is Lebanon’s occupier, growing restless once again?
