Tueni Skirmishes with Berri During Policy Statement Deba

Beirut lawmaker Gebran Tueni made a lengthy assessment of the pros and cons of the policy statement of Premier Seniora's newly formed government in Parliament Thursday and then skirmished with Speaker Berri over U.N. Resolution 1559 and Lebanese prisoners in Syrian jails, An Nahar and other Lebanese dailies reported extensively on Friday.
An Nahar's General-Manager called for a speedy establishment of diplomatic ties with Syria plus an exchange of recognition with the Assad regime, urging, too, a reconsideration of all treaties concluded during Syria's 29-year control of Lebanon, including the structure of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council for its bad performance.

Tueni also urged a demarcation of the Lebanese border with Syria and asked the government to intensify efforts to bring home all Lebanese held in Syrian jails. He criticized the lack of gratitude in the policy statement to U.N. Resolution 1559, which helped Lebanon spin out of Syria's orbit and regain its sovereignty and independence.

When Tueni started to climb down from parliament's podium, Berri told him you have three more minutes to speak. "It's not a shame to express gratitude to the western nations that authored resolution 1559, but I want to ask whether Israel is among them," Berri said.

"Israel is an enemy state," Tueni shot back. "But the Israeli says he made 1559," Berri contended. "The resolution was issued by the Security Council of which Israel is not a member," Tueni replied.

"It is Israel who claimed to have had the principal role," Berri insisted. "We do not usually believe what Israel says. This has always been our stance. Why should we believe her now?" Tueni snapped back.

Berri noted that Tueni made no reference to Lebanese held in Israeli jails within the context of his calls for rescuing the Lebanese from Syrian jails. "That goes without saying," Tueni responded. "How can I abstain from supporting intense efforts to bring back home all the sons of Lebanon from Israeli prisons?"

The Berri-Tueni saber rattling stole the limelight of the evening session of parliament's televised debate of the policy statement that was resumed Friday morning for a vote of confidence. Tueni said he was giving the Seniora government a yes vote.

Hariri's Security Dragnet Air-Tightened as 4 Car-Bombs Roam Lebanon

Saad Hariri has tightened the security dragnet around the family's Koreitem mansion as police forces searched nationwide for 4 car bombs reportedly marauding in Lebanon since the July 12 attempt to assassinate Defense Minister Elias Murr. Hariri's announcement coincided with a story on An Nahar's front-page Friday that security forces fanned en masse in Beirut and some of its inlets overnight amid "reports of an ongoing search for a suspicious car." "In light of a comprehensive assessment of security risks, and within the context of protective moves, a set of new precautionary measures have been introduced around the premises of the Hariri family's residence in Koreitem," said a statement released by Saad Hariri's media center. Saad made an apology to the public for the inconvenience caused by the airtight new measures, which have reportedly closed all immediate approaches of the mansion to traffic. Sources close to Hariri's personal security apparatus said there had been a deluge of telephone tips of car-bombs parked closed to the Koreitem mansion that all proved to be a hoax. "It looked like certain people were purposely parking 'clean' cars at the Koreitem premises and then get on the telephone and warn of a car-bomb at the precise location. No explosives were found on any of the cars," one source said. Lebanon has been gripped by an assassination scare since Marwan Hamadeh miraculously escaped a car bomb remote-controlled explosion near his house Oct. 2 and the subsequent assassination of ex-Premier Hariri by a one-ton bomb that shredded his motorcade Feb. 14. Former Economy Minister Bassel Fleihan died with Hariri along with 20 other people, including six bodyguards. An Nahar's anti-Syria columnist Samir Kassir was then assassinated by a car-bomb June 2, which was followed by the assassination of Communist Ideologue George Hawi June 21. Like Hamadeh, Elias Murr miraculously escaped a car-bomb assassination attempt in the Naccache neighborhood southeast of Beirut July 12. He is still recuperating from injuries he suffered in the attack. Murr's car-bomb has reportedly been traced by police to Tripoli, where it was sold at the city's harbor with 4 similar Mistubishi-Pajeros to a person using a blank power of attorney document. The report Thursday of the 4 marauding potential car-bomb sisters has fueled fears of more assassinations in store for Lebanon.

Police Hunt for '4 Missing Sisters' of Murr's Assassination Car-Bomb

Naharnet

Police are reportedly engaged in a nationwide hunt for 4 'missing sisters' of Defense Minister Elias Murr's assassination car-bomb that are still at large, raising fears more bombing murders may still be in store. Police have traced the Mitsubishi-Pajero 4-wheeler used in Murr's assassination attempt on July 12 to Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli, Al Mustaqbal newspaper reported on Thursday. It was bought on the spot with a blank power of attorney from a Tripoli car dealer upon its arrival at the harbor, wrote veteran criminologist Fares Khashan in a page-one Al Mustaqbal story that was highlighted, too, by the newspaper's television sister network Future-TV. The detained car dealer had told detectives that he sold four other similar 4-wheelers to the same person on the strength of the same blank power of attorney document, wrote Khashan, who has been relentlessly following up the domestic and international investigation into ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination. "It could not be determined as yet whether the four missing sisters of Minister Murr's murder car-bomb were also rigged with explosives for similar terrorist operations. Police have been raiding various spots to find the still-at-large cars in scattered spots across the country in vain, which suggests the terrorists have heavily guarded hideouts," Khashan wrote. He quoted 'reliable sources' as contending that the engineers of Murr's abortive assassination belonged to a highly sophisticated organization with enormous financial resources, taking into consideration the fat costs of the modern cars, whose prices are multiplied when sold to anonymous power of attorney holders. Khashan noted that the sources assume the same sale method could have been employed for the white Mitsubishi truck-bomb used in the Beirut Feb. 14 attack at the St. George location against Rafik Hariri's motorcade. "Examination of Murr's car-bomb wreckage has established that highly professional experts are using sophisticated booby-trapping workshops that cannot be possibly available to Salafi fundamentalist factions," Khashan reported. "The sources believe Murr's would-be assassins are operating in more than one place in Lebanon along the lines of state-run intelligence apparatuses, making certain the group that obtains the cars is not in touch with the booby-trapping experts or the group assigned to surveillance and execution," Khashan noted.

U.S. Sees Consensus That Syria Foments Strife in Lebanon and Iraq

LONDON, June 23 - Bush administration officials asserted Thursday that an international consensus had emerged that Syria had been stoking the violence in Lebanon and Iraq and against Israelis, and they said they were now certain that Syrian agents had been operating in Lebanon.
The comments represented an escalation of the campaign by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to isolate Syria diplomatically as the administration has faced mounting violence against its interests throughout the Middle East. Ms. Rice has not said what other forms of pressure might be applied.
A senior State Department official, briefing reporters under ground rules that he not be identified, said there was "widespread agreement" at a meeting of leading foreign ministers on Thursday in London, and among the delegates at a conference on Iraq in Brussels on Wednesday, that Syria bore major responsibility for instability in the region.
Ms. Rice, at the end of the foreign ministers' meeting, accused Syria of supporting the Iraq insurgency.
"Let's not have more words about what they are prepared to do," she said of Syrian promises to help Iraq with security on their mutual border. "Let's have action. If they're prepared to do it, they should just do it."
The foreign ministers were briefed by James D. Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, on his three-year $3 billion proposal for the economic reconstruction of Palestinian areas, contingent on Israel's planned pullout from Gaza and the northern part of the West Bank.
The package, which would effectively double levels of outside aid for the Palestinians, is tied to a variety of projects, including building facilities to help move goods and people into and out of Palestinian areas.
The renewed pressure on Syria comes as an anti-Syrian majority in the Lebanese Parliament is set to form a government in Beirut and a series of assassinations have been carried out in Lebanon against anti-Syrian politicians and journalists.
In the past, administration officials have said that Syria had a "hit list" for assassination in Lebanon, and they have recently suggested strongly that despite the withdrawal of 14,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon, it appeared that intelligence operatives had remained behind.
A Western diplomat close to the Syrian situation, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to be seen characterizing the positions of other countries, said the consensus about Syria was propelled by European concerns about Lebanon and American concerns about Iraq.
"There's a lot of international pressure on the Syrians to cease and desist, and that's just not the United States," a senior State Department official said. The official said there was intelligence information that made clear that Syrian intelligence operatives remained in Lebanon.
That conclusion was not fully endorsed by the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy. "The withdrawal of Syrian troops has been observed," he said, but there is concern that Syrian intelligence agents might still operate in Lebanon. The meeting in London was of foreign ministers of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, which will hold a summit meeting to be attended by President Bush in July at Gleneagles, Scotland. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain said the ministers also discussed Iran, the Balkans, the war and genocide in Sudan, efforts to resume talks with North Korea and negotiations over China.
But the focus on Syria appeared to be the most intense part of the meetings here and in Brussels, suggesting that world pressure could increase. Syria and Iran sent delegates to the Brussels conference, but Ms. Rice declined to meet with them.
Source: NYTIMES - By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

Lebanon blast hurts scores

BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 22 (UPI) -- A blast in the Lebanese capital of Beirut has hurt several people, news reports said Friday.

The explosion came hours after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to the city to reinforce U.S. support for the new government.

Gen. Ashraf Rifi, head of Lebanese internal security, said an explosive device had been placed under a car in the popular Rue Monot, known for its nightlife.

The BBC said the car was destroyed in the blast.

The country has been the scene of bombings since the Feb. 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was opposed to the Syrian military presence in the country.

After his death, international pressure in the form of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 resulted in Syrian withdrawal from the country after three decades.

Other prominent anti-Syrian politicians and journalists have also been killed since then.

Geagea Out Saturday, Says from Behind Bullet-Proof Glass: 'No More Wars'

Samir Geagea's parole bill is published by the official gazette on Thursday, opening the way for his prompt release from the prison of the defense ministry in Yarze any moment. But one Beirut newspaper close to President Lahoud said the leader of the Lebanese forces would leave jail on Saturday.
Al Bayrak daily said legal and judicial formalities after the bill's official publication would take some 48 hours, making it most probable that he would walk out a free man from Yarze Saturday morning. So will the detainees of the Dinniyeh and Majdal Anjar anti-government hostilities.

Mrs. Geagea is working out the arrangements for her husband's trip from Yarze straight to Beirut airport upon his release to catch a flight either to London or Paris, where he will undergo extensive medical tests and some body-building processes before returning to Lebanon.

Mrs. Sitrida Geagea and senior LF lieutenants are probing options for the Yarze-airport trip by a motorcade of armor-plated limousines or by an army helicopter after a brief reunion with his parents at the ministry compound, media reports said.

The London-based Al Hayat newspaper ran on Thursday an interview it conducted with Geagea in the Yarze jail shortly before Parliament unanimously voted on his parole Monday, saying he spoke to the interviewer from behind a bullet-proof glass curtain set up by prison officials.

It was his first press interview he was allowed to give during his 11 years and nearly three months in jail. "I haven't read a newspaper since my arrest on April 21, 1994 and wasn't allowed to listen to radios or watch television until very recently," Geagea said.

He said all political forces on the Lebanese spectrum should join hands to build future Lebanon by reform programs and democratic means of dialogue. "Return to the violence of the past has been rendered impossible."

Geagea said he felt 'great pain' when he knew of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination. "I was on good terms with him. His absence with the weight he carried on the pan-Arab and international level is a loss for Lebanon," Geagea said, according to Al Hayat.

He paid tribute to the promise Saad Hariri holds and said Lebanon is in dire need nowadays to the "policy of stretched out hand rather that boycott and isolation."

Geagea also expressed satisfaction over the strong showing of the Lebanese Forces in the May-June elections, speaking affectionately of his wife and the endurance she had to put up with during his imprisonment.

"Lebanon's priorities at present should focus on safeguarding stability and making dialogue the only language among the Lebanese to cope with their political and economic woes," Geagea said, Al Hayat reported.

Mehlis: 'Mustafa Hamdan is Suspect in Hariri's Murder, Rustom to be Questioned Soon'

Lebanon's Presidential Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, President Lahoud's inseparable military shadow, has been publicly named by U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis as a prime suspect in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination.
Mehlis, a Berlin prosecutor, made the bombshell accusation from his summer headquarters in Lebanon's central mountain district of Monteverde in an interview published by France's Parisian daily Le Figaro on Wednesday, The Agence France Presse reported.

Mehlis said he also plans to interrogate soon Syria's former military intelligence chief in Lebanon, Brig. Gen. Rustom Ghazaleh, who was the real ruler of Lebanon when the anti-Syria Hariri was assassinated by a one-ton bomb in downtown Beirut Feb. 14.

Mehlis did not say where he would interrogate Ghazaleh, who has left his Anjar headquarters in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley when Syria completed its military evacuation of Lebanon on April 26. "As I have said from the start, any person concerned with security in Lebanon at the time must be questioned."

The Mehlis revelations were made public, possibly on purpose, just hours after the announcement of Lebanon's new government under Fouad Seniora's premiership to try to free Lebanon from the chains left by Syria's 29-year ruthless reign. The timing raised question marks whether it could have been possible to decree the new government had the Mehlis charge been announced beforehand.

On Hamdan, Mehlis said: "On the basis of evidence gathered, we have a suspect, Mustafa Hamdan. He was one of the first persons questioned because we had information that he is the one of those who gave orders to change the scene of the crime, just after the attack."

Mehlis went on to say "Why was this cleaned up? Deliberately? Through negligence? Both? I have quite a clear idea. But we are still in an investigation stage. I can't tell you any more."

There was no immediate comment from Hamdan or President Lahoud on the Mehlis charge.

U.N. investigators on June 21 searched Hamdan's office in the Baabda president palace and his Beirut house and then took him for prolonged interrogation.

"We have searched his home and his office. We have questioned him for more than nine hours. He has cooperated," said Mehlis.

The former chief of Lebanon's General Security Department, Brig. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, also was questioned by the U.N. investigators on July 6, But Mehlis did not classify him as a suspect in the LeFigaro interview.

Mehlis said his team had also received "good information" on the case from Israeli authorities. He did not elaborate.

The London-based Al Hayat said Wednesday Mehlis had issued a summons for Adnan Addoum, the justice minister on Hariri's assassination day and judge Rabia Ammash Qaddoura, the acting prosecutor general at the time, for interrogation. Both received the subpoenas but it could not be determined yet when the questioning session would be held.(AFP-Naharnet)

Freedom Bill Passed, Geagea Leaves Jail Straight to Europe this Weekend

Church bells rang across Lebanon's Christian heartland Monday as parliament overwhelmingly passed a parole bill that put Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea on the homestretch of his race to freedom, hopefully by the end of the week.

Long convoys of cars with honking horns joyously toured the streets of Besharri, Geagea's hometown in north Lebanon's cedar mountains and around his house in suburban Zouk Mosbeh north of Beirut just as TV networks interrupted the regular programs to flash out the passage of the freedom bill.

Giant Geagea portraits adorned by roses, national and LF banners, were hoisted over each of the cars in the wildly cheering caravans amid calls blared by loudspeakers to refrain from provocation or law-breaking acts.

"This is a dream that came true. We waited for it for 11 years, 2 months and some days," Mrs. Geagea told reporters after leaving parliament in all-white dress, which she described as a wedding gown. "History has been made and Lebanon's civil war is finally over."

The vote was unanimous for Geagea. Hizbullah's 13 legislators walked out of the hall when the vote was called to avoid casting 'no' ballots or abstain. An earlier vote for the release of the Dinniyeh and Majdal Anjar detainees was near unanimous, with only one legislator voting against.

Gen. Aoun and Walid Jumblat failed to attend the session. But Saad Hariri, who treasures his Tayyar Al Mustaqbal alliance with the LF, jetted back from a private visit to his family in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in time to attend and vote.

The LBCI said once the legal process for enforcing the parole bill is completed, probably by the weekend, Geagea would be taken straight from the Yarze prison to Beirut's Rafik Hariri airport for a trip with his wife Sitrida to a European capital, most probably London.

Geagea, 53, has lost a lot of weight in prison. He would be admitted to a hospital to undergo extensive medical tests and be nourished back to normal before returning home to take up his role among Lebanon's policymakers.

Seniora Agrees with Lahoud on Cabinet of 24 Non-Partisan Technocrats

Premier-Designate Fouad Seniora announced Thursday that he has agreed with President Lahoud on forming a government of non-partisan technocrats from without the newly elected parliament to lead Lebanon out of the political, economic and security instability left by the downfall of Syria's reign.
Seniora said from the press rostrum of the Baabda Presidential Palace the agreement on the extra-parliamentarian government was reached during 35 minutes of talks with the president at mid-morning, scrapping a 30-minister cabinet lineup that was vetoed by Lahoud, Gen. Aoun, Hizbullah and Speaker Berri's Amal Movement.

Seniora was all smiles when he made the announcement, saying the extra-parliamentary cabinet was his 'first initial and favorite choice' before having to get entangled in tedious negotiations with the major blocs produced by the May-June elections of the new parliament.

The new cabinet, Seniora said, would be made up of 24 specialized ministers and pledged to put it together "very soon."

The announcement confirmed an 8-column banner-line that roared across An Nahar's page-one, saying "Seniora to Propose a Government of Technocrats or Bow Out."

Seniora is unshakably bent on a government that can reign without anyone or any coalition of minorities controlling the so-called 'subversive one third' of the cabinet seats with which to veto resolutions by the Council of Ministers.

He is backed by the March 14 anti-Syria alliance of Saad Hariri's Tayyar Al Mustaqbal, Walid Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party, Qornet Shahwan and Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces. The quadripartite alliance controls at least 72 votes in the 128-member parliament, which assures the premier-designate a comfortable majority to rule.

Gen Aoun has accused Seniora and majority leader Saad Hariri of reneging on an accord they worked out with him during his Koreitem visit on Sunday that his 21-strong parliamentary bloc would take four active portfolios if the new cabinet is made up of 24 ministers, adding a state minister without portfolio if the cabinet is enlarged to 30 ministers.

Aoun told a new conference at his Rabieh Mansion Wednesday that he would not let the majority to strip the minorities from the so-called 'subversive one third' in the Council of Ministers.

"There is a game to control the two thirds," Aoun told An Nahar, asserting that "there is a conversion of interests, not an accord, between us and Hizbullah and Amal. Amongst us we constitute one third of the nation. Nevertheless we are not allowed to get the subversive one third of the cabinet."

Hariri's Al Mustaqbal newspaper said overnight contacts had removed Hizbullah's objection to Seniora's enlarged cabinet lineup, which resulted from the premier-designate's failure to consult in advance with the Party of God over the addition of six ministers to the original 24-minister cabinet lineup. But this report could not be independently verified.

Murr's Assassination Bid Seen Engineered by a Palestinian and a Syrian Kurd

Elias Murr's assassination attempt was plotted by a Palestinian and a Syrian Kurd at Sidon's refugee camp of Ein El-Hilweh, the local media said Wednesday, splashing, too, a personal assertion Murr made from his hospital bed that he holds Lebanon's State Security apparatus responsible for "any security action endangering me."
"I had information since March of an attempt being hatched on my life," Murr told Beirut's Future-TV network in an interview recorded at Serhal hospital shortly after he came out from a 4-hour surgery to treat wounds he suffered from a car-bomb assassination attempt Tuesday.

"I had to send a letter a week ago from now to the military prosecution department telling of the information I had received by chance, which was possessed by the State Security apparatus. I held this apparatus responsible for security action that puts me in danger," Murr said in a steady voice.

Future-TV's specialized researcher Fares Khashan produced late night Tuesday an 'intelligence document' from Lebanon's State Security apparatus containing accurate information about meetings held in Ein El Hilweh in which Palestinian and Syrian conferees debated plans to assassinate Murr.

The document, attributed to a "very reliable source" by the State Security apparatus spoke of assassination-connected meetings held at the Ein El Hilweh house of Abu Hammam, a Palestinian, in the presence of a former Kurdish Syrian army soldier identified only by his first name of Jassem.

"The conspirators used an enlarged map of the Mt. Lebanon region and underlined the road to Murr's house where a car-bomb will be planted for the assassination," the Khashan document said.

It asserted that Abu Hammam and Jassem smuggled high-powered C-4 explosives, the type used in Rafik Hariri's assassination, from Jordan via Syria a week before he was murdered Feb. 14.

Khashan said Murr had passed to him the document of the State Security apparatus and asked him to release it "only if and when I am targeted by assassins." Murr gave Khashan the document during a dinner in March attended by Marwan Hamadeh and other political figures, Khashan said.

Chief U.N. investigator into Hariri's murder, Detlev Mehlis, recently asked Syria, Jordan and Israel for information on the movements of certain persons and the customs records of certain shipments. The dramatic revelations Tuesday suggest Mehlis may be tracking down Abu Hammam and Jassem along with the way they used to smuggle the C-4 explosives to Lebanon.

Jumblat Contends Murr Possesses Vital Evidence on Hariri's Assassination

Walid Jumblat said Tuesday the assassination attempt of caretaker Defense Minister Elias Murr was probably engineered to stop him from giving vital testimony about ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination.
"Murr was close to Hariri before the Feb. 14 assassination and they had held several unannounced meetings abroad," said Jumblat. "This is the only explanation that comes to my mind."

Gen. Aoun, whose residence in Rabieh is close to Murr's villa, said Tuesday's attempted murder was additional evidence of the crucial period of transition Lebanon is passing through since the April termination of Syria's tutelage.

President Lahoud raced from the Baabda Palace to Serhal hospital to see his son-in-law before he was admitted to an operation theater for a surgery on one of his hands. Murr's father, Michel Murr, sat in an apparent shock on the door to the surgery room.

Others who rushed to the hospital included Premier Designate Fouad Seniora, Saad Hariri, caretaker Premier Mikati, U.S. ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, Gebran Tueni and Marwan Hamadeh, who miraculously escaped a remote-controlled car bomb assassination attempt Oct. 1.

Army troops were deployed en masse around the Serhal hospital as well as the nearby scene of Murr's abortive murder ambush and all approaches to the district, including Aoun's residence.

President Lahoud's Son-in-Law Elias Murr Survives Assassination Ambush

Lebanon's caretaker Vice Premier and Defense Minister Elias Murr survived an assassination bombing ambush with minor and medium burns in Beirut's suburban district of Naccache Tuesday. Police said at least 2 other persons were killed and 10 wounded in the explosion that ripped Murr's motorcade to shreds.
The reports said Murr, 45, the son-in-law of President Lahoud, was helped out of his armor-plated four-wheeler Porsche by onlookers and taken to the nearby Sarhal hospital in Lebanon's Christian heartland where he underwent a minor operation on one of his hands. He was later transformed to the American University Hospital in Beirut.

His military aide de camp, Col. Elias Bayssari, reportedly suffered life-threatening wounds along with several other bodyguards. Bayssari was operated on in Abou Jaoude hospital and was reported in stable condition in an intensive care unit.

Police investigators said the 60-kg explosive charge was planted beneath a Pajero Mitsubishi parked at the roadside and detonated by a remote control only a second before the motorcade rolled past, which contributed to Murr's miraculous escape. The explosion carved a 2-meter-wide crater in the pavement and flung the booby-trapped vehicle over the stone wall of an adjacent villa. The blast also broke shop glass veneers and house windows within a 700 meter radius.

Local TV footages from the scene north of the capital showed rescuers and riot police extracting several bloodied casualties from the motorcade as well as seven other smoldering cars. One of these cars was a Mercedes Benz that was gutted and the driver was charred to death.

Politicians from various shades of thought raced to the scene and then to the hospital. Among them was Saad Hariri, the majority leader of the new parliament who inherited his father's political mantle after Rafik Hariri's Feb. 14 assassination.

Gebran Tueni was among the earliest callers. Tueni, who holds one of Beirut's seats in the newly elected Lebanese parliament, raced in his car through the 10 kilometers from An Nahar's downtown headquarter building to the hilltop hospital in the Metn province to be on hand as Murr was being wheeled into an operation theater for surgery.

Tueni saw Murr at the surgery room and recorded a message on his mobile in which Murr assured the public of his wellbeing, "Thank God, it's OK ... The country is going through a difficult period and we all have to bear that."

The bombing scene is close to several embassies and foreign diplomatic missions. Among the injured was the wife of Mexico's ambassador who was rushed to the same hospital.

Like Lahoud, Murr has long been a Syrian protégé in Lebanon's politics. He is the first targeted pro-Syrian after a chain of assassinations left four anti-Syrian politicians dead-- ex-Premier Hariri, his economy advisor Bassel Fleihan, An Nahar's columnist Samir Kassir and communist ideologue George Hawi.

The previous assassinations were all blamed on Syria's secret service by former anti-Syria opposition leaders who now form the majority of the newly-elected parliament. There was no immediate comment Tuesday on who may have engineered Murr's attempted murder.

The attempt came amid reports of a clash between President Lahoud and Premier-designate Fouad Seniora on whether Murr would be retained as vice premier and defense minister in the new government.

Seniora Suffers Double-Barreled Jolt with Rebellious Lahoud, Betrayed Aoun

President Lahoud has vowed to veto any cabinet lineup that does not give him one third of the seats as Premier-Designate Fouad Seniora triggered a clash with Gen. Aoun by expressing unwillingness to take the General's parliamentary allies into the new government.
The double-barreled setback threatens to blow apart Seniora's boast that he has formed the first totally made-in-Lebanon government in three decades. He may hold a meeting with Lahoud at the Baabda palace sometime on Tuesday in an attempt to have the cabinet decreed in the evening or Wednesday morning.

"I shall not sign the decrees of a government in which I am not an essential partner," Lahoud was quoted as saying in a screaming 8-column banner-line across the front-page of Al Bayrak newspaper, his mouthpiece.

"Lahoud insists on his terms and wages the battle for the subversive one-third," screamed a similar headline across Al Balad's page-one, signaling a presidential stance that could leave Lebanon without a government after the May-June elections for a first free-from-Syria Lebanese parliament.

An Nahar said Seniora's cabinet lineup excludes pro-Lahoud Information Minister Charles Rizk and the president's son-in-law Elias Murr from the post of vice premier and defense minister. Seniora contends the constitution does not stipulate for any share in the cabinet for the president.

The strain with Aoun came only a day after the General concluded a 'durable pact' with majority leader Saad Hariri and with Seniora at a visit he made to Hariri's Koreitem mansion on Sunday.

Aoun said after the visit that his Free Patriotic Movement would get the justice and environment portfolios and his parliament ally Elias Skaff and the Armenian Tashnag Party would also be given two more ministries.

But Seniora was reported overnight to have expressed reservation about taking Skaff and the Tashnag into his projected 24-member cabinet. His change of mind prompted Aoun to convene an open-ended emergency meeting of his 21-strong bloc in Parliament to cope with any surprise developments affecting the government.
One particular development other than Seniora's reservation was an agreement by Seniora with Hizbullah and Speaker Berri's Amal Movement to give the foreign ministry to Fawzi Salloukh, 74, a former veteran diplomat who served for 36 years with the foreign corps. The choice was reportedly backed by Saad Hariri's Tayyar Al Mustaqbal

'Deluge of Booby-Trapped Suitcases' Cited for Syria's Trade War

The Assad regime has given conflicting alibis for the trade blockade it clamped against Lebanon to avenge the humiliating downfall of Syria's political and military tutelage, with the interior minister citing a deluge of contraband booby-trapped suitcases and the customs chief claiming a rehabilitation of border passes, An Nahar reported Monday. "The border restrictions have been enforced after receiving information of attempts to smuggle hundreds of booby-trapped suitcases to Syria from Lebanon," Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan was quoted by Egypt's official new agency MENA as saying in Qatar's capital Doha Sunday, An Nahar said. But the head of Syria's customs department, Dr. Bassel Sandouka, said in a statement released in Damascus that an "ambitious plan" was underway to rehabilitate Syria's border passageways with all neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. Irrespective of the authenticity of either alibi, long convoys of cargo trucks remained stranded at Lebanese-Syrian border crossings, some for more than three straight weeks, imperiling Lebanon's transit trade with the Arab world and closing the Syrian markets for Lebanese industrial and agricultural products. Lebanese pleas to President Assad to intervene to stop the obviously deliberate punitive measure have fallen on deaf ears. Beirut media reports said Monday Premier-Designate Fouad Seniora would travel to Damascus to try to resolve the crisis if and when his government gets a vote of confidence from the Lebanese parliament.

Abbas Pledges from Beirut to Obey Lebanon's Decision to Disarm Palestinians

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Friday he will abide by any decision that the Lebanese government takes concerning the disarmament of Palestinians living across refugee camps in Lebanon.

"We are guests in Lebanon, temporary guests, and we are subject to Lebanese laws just like everybody else in Lebanon," Abbas said after talks with President Emile Lahoud.

Abbas arrived in Beirut Friday from Damascus where he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Abbas also held talks with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Premier Najib Mikati.

During his visit to Lebanon Abbas is widely expected to discuss the issue of disarming Palestinians living in the country as demanded by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls on Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias to give up their weapons.

However Abbas said he did not raise the matter with Lahoud.

"Resolution 1559 concerns the Lebanese government and people, and we are with them in any decision they take concerning implementation of this resolution," he told reporters after their meeting.

Visiting U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Elizabeth Dibble, reiterated the need for Palestinian groups to disarm, but said the Palestinian presence in Lebanon is a final status question.

"I know that this issue is a very sensitive one here in Lebanon. The issue of final status has yet to be determined between Israel and the Palestinians, and this is all tied up with that," she told Voice of Lebanon radio station.

Abbas also thanked the Lebanese government for the recent easing of labor restrictions for Palestinians born in Lebanon. A decree issued last month by Lebanon's labor minister relaxed rules denying Palestinian refugees living in the country since the creation of Israel the right to work in most jobs, allowing them to work in a range of private-sector jobs.

"We are very grateful for the Lebanese government for this great brotherly measure," Abbas said.

Abbas said it was up to the Lebanese government to decide on an appropriate time for opening a Palestinian embassy in Beirut.

Abbas promised Assad on Thursday that he would continue to coordinate future moves for establishing a peace settlement in the Middle East. He also met with leaders of Damascus-based radical Palestinian factions, including Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal.(AP)

Parliament's 'Free-Geagea' Session May be Held Next Week

The Lebanese Forces has asked Speaker Berri to set a date Friday for a legislative sitting of the new parliament to vote speedily on a bill of parole that will release LF commander Samir Geagea from the defense ministry prison in Yarze by the end of the month. The request was made by LF legislator George Adwan after the justice ministry resolved on Thursday that the new legislature is constitutionally capable of holding legislative sittings as long as the country is without a reigning government without a need for a Presidential decree to open the session. However President Lahoud and caretaker Premier Mikati, who met at the Baabda palace Thursday to discuss the issue, issued a decree Friday calling an extraordinary session of parliament that lasts through Oct. 17. Press reports said LF legislators held overnight consultations with allies in Saad Hariri's Tayyar Al Mustaqbal, Walid Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party and Qornet Shahwan, reaching a consensus for a collective campaign of pressure to have the 'free-Geagea' session held early next week. Speaker Berri told As Safir he still stands by his commitment to convene the Geagea session by July's end, but said the first session of the parliament should be devoted to the election of the committees, after which it becomes possible to discuss a specific date for Geagea's meeting.

Lahoud Gives in, Geagea out in July, Gets TV Set in Prison, MTV to Reopen

President Lahoud has bowed to the will of the majority in Lebanon's newly elected parliament, ascertaining that he will issue a new decree to convene an extraordinary sitting of Parliament to allow the release of Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea by the end of the month.
The new decree, which is expected to be signed and formally announced by the president on Thursday, provides for an extraordinary sitting of parliament through mid-October in response to a petition carrying the signatures of 72 legislators, who added to the agenda a draft bill to reopen the MTV network.

The petition, sponsored by Qornet Shahwan legislator Butros Harb, was first lodged with parliament's secretariat, which in turn dispatched it to the Baabda palace on motorcycle on Wednesday. The palace acknowledged receipt and said President Lahoud was in the process of sending the new decree to the official gazette.

These developments were preceded by a meeting Sitrida Geagea convened of the LF 6-member bloc in parliament at her house in Zouk Mosbeh. A statement afterwards said the LF bloc was bewildered by the first presidential decree, which listed the election of parliament's new committees as the sole agenda item of a 15-day extraordinary sitting.

Geagea in the meantime watched television at his prison room in the defense ministry at Yarze for the first time in 11 years and nearly four months of incarceration on Wednesday, An Nahar reported Thursday morning.

The event came within the context of easing prison restrictions on the LF leader on the eve of his impending release, An Nahar noted

Parliament Rebels Against President, Berri: 'Geagea Free by July's End'

The majority of the newly elected parliament has decided to boycott a session scheduled for Wednesday in protest against a presidential decree that opened a 15-day legislative sitting without listing on the agenda a parole bill to free Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea from prison. The majority move has blocked a quorum for Wednesday's session to vote in parliament's new specialized committees, which is the only agenda item listed in the presidential decree that was issued by President Lahoud and outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday. Angry because he was not consulted, Speaker Berri announced the cancellation of Wednesday's session and renewed his public pledge that Geagea will be out of jail before July's end. "I stand by my public commitment for Dr. Geagea's release even if a petition carrying the signatures of one half of parliament members is required," Berri said in what appeared to be a challenge to President Lahoud. Qornet Shahwan legislator Butros Harb announced Wednesday that he has collected the signatures of 70 parliament members for a petition demanding an immediate session of parliament to vote on Geagea's parole bill. Berri also took a pro-Seniora stance, telling An Nahar the new government "will certainly be formed" and it would be functioning as of July 17 or 18. "I haven't interfered in the formation process so far," Berri said ahead of a meeting scheduled for Wednesday with Seniora, however.

U.S. Freezes Riches Made by Syrian Intelligence Chiefs as Dictators over Lebanon

 

The United States, turning up the heat on Syria, is blocking the financial assets of the country's interior minister Ghazi Kenaan and military intelligence chief Rustom Ghazaleh, each of whom amassed a fabulous fortune during his service as effective dictator over Lebanon. The move on Thursday grabbed page-one headlines in Beirut on Friday. The U.S. Treasury Department in Washington said it believes the two men have been linked to terrorist acts as they played lead roles in directing Syria's military presence in Lebanon. The action means that any assets belonging to these men found in the United States will be frozen. Americans also are forbidden from doing business with them. The power for the department to take the action stems from a May, 11, 2004, executive order by President Bush. Thursday's designations targeting the two Syrians were the first under that order, said Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise. Syria's official news agency, SANA, quoted a government press official as saying the U.S. action was an attempt to escalate political pressure on Syria and an attempt to divert attention from what Syria described as Israeli aggression in southern Lebanon. Syria is on the U.S. State Department's list of countries and organizations accused of supporting terrorism. Despite strained relations with the United States, Syrian officials have repeatedly said they are cooperating with the U.S.-led war on terrorism. The country has said all its military forces left Lebanon in April after some three decades as the dominant political and military force there. "We are seeking democracy to take hold in Lebanon and other places in the Middle East, yet Syria continues to support violent groups and political strife," said Treasury Secretary John Snow. Before taking his current post as interior minister, Kenaan served as the chief of Syrian Military Intelligence for Lebanon for 20 years, the department said. He was replaced by Ghazaleh in late 2002. The department alleged that during Kenaan's command in Lebanon, he ensured that Syrian military intelligence officers remained "deeply involved" in Lebanese political and economic affairs. Kenaan also is alleged to have provided support to Hizbullah, which the U.S. has deemed a terrorist group. "In 2002, three rockets in a convoy allegedly escorted by Kenaan were personally delivered across the Syrian-Lebanese border to Hizbullah in Lebanon," the department said. Addressing Ghazaleh, he "manipulated Lebanese politics to ensure that Lebanese officials and public policy remained committed" to Syria's goals and interests, the department alleged. In late 2004, he allegedly warned that Syria "was determined to physically harm anyone who interfered with Lebanon's economic situation and caused a crisis of confidence," the department said. "Syria has asked its ambassador in Washington to seek clarifications from the State Department" about the move against Kenaan and Ghazaleh, said a Syrian official in Damascus, according to the state-run SANA news agency. "Syria is astonished by this announcement which is designed to intensify the pressure on Syria and divert attention from Israeli aggressions" in south Lebanon.(Naharnet-AP-AFP)