Rafik Hariri assassin Iraq > Syria > Lebanon

Intelligence reports, developed in an inquiry by the Beirut military Judge, Mechid Mahzer, suggest that the assassin of resigned Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's beloved billionaire architect of a 10-year process of reconstruction after the bloody Civil War which ended fourteen years ago, was killed by a terrorist with links to the Sunni-Wahabbist-Salafist islamofascists [I'm trying to give a proper technical Problem-Historical designation here] who are at work in Iraq and are led by Jordanian Wahabbist-Salafist Sunni, Zaraqawi, to whom all non-strict practioners of the sect's definition of Islam, are all in their multiple millions of Muslims, worthy of death.

It is now maintained that Hariri's assassin began his journey from a stay in Saudi Arabia from where he travelled to Iraq, reconnecting with his Zaraqawi-style former comrades and mentors. From there he went or was sent to Syria where two top generals have been implicated in the elmination of Hariri, including the brother-in-law of Syria's President Bashir Assad (the London-trained dentist who succeeded his father as Syria's head of state). Another general involved is apparently Lebanese.

Hariri was a symbol and undoubtedly an influence among the Lebanese population for the demand to withdraw Syrian occupation troops. But his split almost a year ago from Lebanese President, Émile Lahoud, and Hariri's resignation had to do with narrowly political concerns, namely, Syria's enforced extension of Lahound's term of office when Hariri himself wanted to run for that post. Yet the differences between the two Sunnis were deeper underlying policy issues regarding the status of Syria's 15,000 regular troops in the country. Both men were Sunnis, I repeat, adding, and neither were religious fanatics. Yet, Lahoud's role is not without its own mitigating circumstance, despite his being Syria's puppet. Why such a marionette?

To understand that better, it is necessary to consider another close connection, this time with another occupying force in Lebanon, which used other means including do-gooder projects and whose cadres are those of Iranian Hezbollah recruits who constantly replenish the irregular do-gooder Hezbollah force situated to harrass and bombard with missiles launced from Lebanon's south, the population-centers and facilities across the Israeli border. Thus, behind the tension of the Syrian presence which divided the pro-Syrian puppet President Lahoud from his earlier Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who resigned over the differences regarding the Syrians occupation; there is another factor at play: to the minds of Lahoud's Sunni ruling faction. Consider simply that the Baathist-controlled Syrian Army is the only force that can keep the Shi'ite fanatics of Iran-financed and -recruited Hezbollah under control. If only the Syrian Army leaves Lebanon, then Hezbollah's power rises exponentially and will spread to other zones of Lebanon.

But the counterweight to that will be the fanatical side of the polymorphous Sunni community, which is at present conducting multiple attacks on the Shia annual religious celebrations / self-flagellations in Iraq. The Wahabbist - Salafist ideology of this particular wing of Sunnism ardently believes in the destruction of all devotion to past Imams and even destruction of the ornate historical Mosques that become sites of pilgrimage. All this is anathema to Wahabbism out of Saudi Arabia, and to its activist Salafist vanguard who consider themselves the only authentic Muslims. Salafism embodied in Al-Quaeda and Zargawi's brigades in Iraq is a very iconoclastic sect, armed, and capable of any atrocity.

Thus, there is a powerful consideration guiding Lebanon's President Lahoud, to the point of his puppet-policy, whereas Hariri thawt Lebanon could evenutally expell both the Syrian Army and Hezbollah irregulars, thus removing Iran's pernicious influence in the Lebanese south bordering Israel, as well as the Baathist military of Syria's Bashir Assad (who may be something of a puppet himself). - Owlb

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