New fight rips at a fragile Lebanon
In the worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war, at least 71 people have been killed in a Lebanese Army battle with Islamic militants.
from the May 22, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Further fraying the nerves of the Lebanese, a large bomb exploded in a car park in eastern Beirut, killing one woman and wounding 12 on Sunday.
The government and its supporters in the anti-Syrian March 14 alliance accuse Syria of triggering the upsurge of violence. They say it's a Syrian reaction to the imminent adoption by the United Nations Security Council of an international tribunal to judge the killers of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister whose murder in February 2005 is widely blamed on Damascus.
Syria has denied any involvement in Mr. Hariri's death.
The tribunal lies at the heart of the six-month political crisis in Lebanon that has left the country politically and economically deadlocked.
The creation of the tribunal, the result of an agreement between the UN and the Lebanese government, depended on the formal approval of the Lebanese parliament. But Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliamentary speaker, has refused to have a parliamentary session to allow a vote to proceed. Last week, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora asked the UN Security Council to push the tribunal through. The UN Security Council can bypass Lebanese parliamentary approval by adopting the tribunal under Chapter 7 of the UN charter.
The government says it believes that once the tribunal is a fait accompli, the pro-Syrian Lebanese opposition will agree to resolve other outstanding issues.
"Some are worried that if the tribunal comes in then bad things will happen to the country," says Mohammed Chatah, senior adviser to Siniora. "But we take the view that decoupling the international tribunal from other strategic issues in Lebanon will allow for progress in resolving these other issues."
But that may be wishful thinking, analysts say, pointing to the violence in north Lebanon and the bomb attack in Beirut.
Anti-Syrian politicians maintain that Fatah al-Islam is composed of Al Qaeda-linked militants and is controlled by Syrian military intelligence to carry out destabilizing acts in Lebanon.
"Palestinian Islamist groups in Lebanon have always had ties to Syrian intelligence. Many of them were trained in Syria and fought in Iraq before coming to Lebanon," says Radwan al-Sayyed, a professor of Islamic law and an adviser to Mr. Siniora.
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