A violent blast from a car bomb wounded 50 today in a southern suburb of Beirut populated mainly by Shi’ite muslims. Many already believe this was a provocateured event, designed to cause a sectarian reaction in Lebanon, and one that is politically tied to the Syrian conflict.
In response to the horrific terrorist attack, Future Movement and March 14 Alliance political voice, former Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri – seen by many as an agent of Washington DC foreign interests, has seemingly done the improbable – issuing a statement which will surely create problems for Washington DC and anger the Israeli Lobby.
Hariri has come out to directly implicate Israel in today’s attack – accusing the Jewish state of staging a grotesque bombing in order to inflame an already simmering political divide between Sunnis and Shias in Lebanon. The Daily Star reported Hariri’s bold statement today:
“[The blast] requires the highest level of awareness and vigilance in the face of dangers that surround the country and the entire region, especially while facing attempts by the Israeli enemy to push [Lebanon] to strife by organizing terrorist attacks, as happened today”.
Israel is expected to deny any knowledge of this terrorist event, and will certainly be expected to condemn its accuser in Hariri. Normally, this would be a viable move for the Israeli lobby providing that it’s ally the US is providing full political cover, but Israel can no longer count of the sort of unflinching political cover and support at every turn by Washington DC. Unfortunately for Israel, the US has since compromised its international political standing by its commitment to arming and training jihadists and Saudi/Qatari paid foreign insurgents in Syria, and is currently standing on shaky ground at home and abroad for its role in the planned destabilisation of Syria.US Congressional committees are already announcing that they will be holding up plans to send U.S. weapons to rebels, a situation which indicates that the policy is not viable anymore at home.
In addition, recent events in Sidon, Lebanon have demonstrated how cautious and collected the Lebanese have become in not rushing for the sectarian exits at the sound the gun. All this is bad news for western central planning, if indeed the goal is to drag Lebanon down into another civil war, as punishment for not disarming Hezbollah.
Today’s car bomb in Beirut arrives on the back of the tragic shootout only two weeks earlier in Sidon where radical Sunni Cleric Ahmed Al-Assir’s small army of jihadist gunmen fired on Lebanese army checkpoints, prompting the army to raid Assir’s compound in a bloody battle that cost dozens of lives, including at least 12 Lebanese soldiers. This too, appeared to be a provocation by radical Sunni elements to push Lebanon into another sectarian crisis – with an aim to further politically isolate Shi’ite organisation, Hezbollah, over their role in assisting the Syrian government in dealing with the mostly foreign insurgency which has ravaged Lebanon’s neighbor Syria for over two years now. The stated intention of this violent attack by Sunni gunmen in Sidon was to punish the Lebanese government for not condemning Hezbollah for their paramilitary support of Bashar Al Assad’s government. In the end, it back-fired from a public relations standpoint, as the majority of Lebanese – rather than retreat into their sectarian corners, instead overwhelmingly rallied together in support of the government’s stand against this unwelcome radical terrorism.
IMAGE: Car bomb today in Beirut threatens the stability of a heavily hamstrung sectarian Lebanon.
It’s possible that the Assir raid, which took place in Sidon – a political stronghold of Sunni Saad Harriri, was also a provocateured event – engineered from outside of Lebanon, evidenced by its unusual asymmetric shape and also by the highly unusual presence of foreign Sunni fighters at the scene of the shootout. Aside from reports that Sunni Cleric Assir was recruiting foreign fighters for jihad in Syria, Lebanese Army reports also suggest that “Assir’s militia men included some foreign fighters, and their tactics resembled those of Al-Qaeda and Fatah al-Islam“. This potentially ties the event to forces outside of Lebanon and into a totally new realm, because both US and UK, and perhaps Israel too on some level, are actively in contact and intimately involved in coordinating with foreign insurgency groups throughout the region who are being deployed in Syria – so this would also include Cleric Assir’s operation in Lebanon.
If US, or British intelligence were in fact managing the Assir militant enclave, just as they with many others around the globe – then this would mean that either the US or British intelligence either had prior knowledge of the deadly Assir attack, or that their involvement could have even been much deeper.
In the past, Saad Hariri himself, has been accused of exploiting of takfiri militias like Fatah Al-Islam inside Lebanon in order to try and neutralise Hezbollah – all with the blessing of the US State Department – which was exposed by US journalist Seymour Hersh who outlined how then Assistant to US Secretary of State, David Welch, negotiated with the Saudis and Saad Hariri of the American-backed Siniora government – to funnel cash to extremists Fatah al-Islam, “so that the Sunni group could eventually attack Shiite Hezbollah”.
If it’s known that Israel is responsible for today’s car bomb attack, then this would swing Lebanese public opinion away from sectarian instability and demonizing Hezbollah, and more towards national union.
Little is known about Israel’s similar operations within various militant and terrorist organisations – although it’s now common knowledge that Israel’s intelligence arm Shin Bet founded and ran Hamas back in 1976.
What is seen by many as an unholy alliance between the Jewish state and its partners the US and UK should be studied closely, not least of because it’s more than evident after following the Israeli lobby’s wish list over the last few decades – the Iraq War, sanctions on Iran and an expansion of its total land size through illegal settlements in Palestine which corresponds with no movement on a peace settlement over occupied Palestine – that Israel’s own agenda and motivations in the region normally drives US and British foreign policy decisions. So administering a collective punishment of sectarian chaos to Lebanon for allowing Hezbollah to impede the US,UK and Israel’s “Syrian Project” would not be surprising, especially considering Israel and America’s own penchant for self-righteously administering collective punishments on various countries throughout recent history.
With Israeli’s sworn enemy Hezbollah entering the into the Syrian equation this past April, it would seem that Israeli and US/UK interests are more aligned than ever. Based on this assessment, Saad Hariri’s accusation of an Israeli false flag attack inside Lebanon may be accurate.
No matter who was responsible for this latest terrorist event, it’s becoming more and more evident that outside forces are using events in Syria to apply pressure on Lebanon – to increase sectarian strife and to push the country closer and closer to a crisis point.
More from the Daily Star on this issue…
BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri blamed Israel Tuesday for the “terrorist explosion” that rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs and accused the country of trying to provoke Sunni-Shiite strife in Lebanon.
“[The blast] requires the highest level of awareness and vigilance in the face of dangers that surround the country and the entire region, especially while facing attempts by the Israeli enemy to push [Lebanon] to strife by organizing terrorist attacks, as happened today,” Hariri said in a statement.
“After of terrible criminal scene that Beirut’s southern suburbs witnessed, the Lebanese can only express indignation and condemnation of the crime that targeted one of the most populated neighborhoods,” the statement said.
A car bomb explosion ripped through the Beirut’s southern suburb neighborhood of Bir al-Abed, a pro-Hezbollah area, wounded dozens of people.
“As I strongly condemn the terrorist bombing that harmed innocent civilians, I ask God Almighty to bless the wounded with safety and health,” Hariri said.
Hariri said that the blast should shock Lebanese “to go back to the national consensus on keeping Lebanon away from external conflicts and to avoid slipping into wars that will only inflict further divisions in the country, place national stability at risk and expose Lebanon to the conspiracies of the Israeli enemy.”
The former PM, who heads the Future Movement, urged an investigation into the blast and called on political leaders to shoulder responsibility in addressing the country’s deteriorating security situation.
For his part, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora condemned the blast and warned citizens to “be careful about who is plotting conspiracies and strife in this dangerous stage Lebanon and the region are going through.”
Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani also condemned the explosion and said it aimed at “destabilizing Lebanon’s security and the country’s civil peace.”
Separately, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea condemned the attack and urged the judicial and security authorities to address the matter with “complete seriousness” in order to reveal the perpetrators and punish them as soon as possible.
“The security of the nation and its people comes only through a strong and powerful state that alone handles the security and military mission,” Geagea said in a statement.
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said he considered the attack as an assault on the entire nation and said that the sharp political divisions between the Lebanese people should come to an end.
“The blast confirms once again that it is not acceptable to carry on the sharp political divisions among the Lebanese,” he said.
“[Such divisions] expose the country to further security incidents and dangers at all levels,” he added.
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