Lebanon mourns army commander
LEBANON has bid farewell to a senior army commander whose killing has worsened the political crisis in a country struggling to fill the vacant presidency.
Church bells tolled and hundreds of mourners applauded as the coffin of Brigadier General Francois el-Hajj was carried by army officers into a basilica in Harissa, north of the capital Beirut.
Mourners threw rose petals on the coffin, draped in the Lebanese flag, as leaders from both the Western-backed ruling majority and the opposition, backed by Syria and Iran, stood in sombre mood.
Dozens of soldiers and officers stood at salute, some weeping, as the coffin went by.
Hajj”s assassination, the first attack on the military in a series of murders that have rocked Lebanon in the past three years, has been widely linked to the crisis over the presidency and the army”s recent battle against islamists linked with al-Qaida.
The crisis is the worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
State prosecutor Saeed Mirza said no one had been formally arrested in connection with Hajj”s murder but that several people had been detained for questioning.
Defence Minister Elias Murr said the probe has led to “serious leads” but did not elaborate.
“This is a great tragic loss; it is not just about an officer but about a nation thrown into the wilderness,” a visibly angry Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir told mourners during the funeral ceremony.
“Assassinations have continued without mercy for three years and today, the hand of treachery has reached the army and its brave leaders,” he said.
Cardinal Sfeir is head of the influential Maronite church, from which Lebanon”s presidents are drawn and of which Hajj was a member.
“The series (of assassinations) have continued to take place even after the end of the nightmare,” he said in an apparent reference to the end in 2005 of 29 years of Syrian military and political domination in Lebanon,” Cardinal Sfeir said.
A day of national mourning was declared today with all schools and universities closed and flags flying at half mast.
Lebanon has been without a head of state since November 23 when incumbent Emile Lahoud stepped down at the end of his term, and with rival political parties unable to agree on a successor.
Hajj had been tipped to replace as army chief General Michel Sleiman, who is the frontrunner for the presidency.
However, the rival parties have been unable to agree on how to amend the constitution to allow for Sleiman”s election and the make-up of the new cabinet.
A parliamentary session is due to be held Monday to elect a president but it is widely believed it will be postponed, as has happened with eight previous ones since September.
Hajj”s murder triggered a chorus of condemnation across the globe and warnings it could further destabilise Lebanon, which is still recovering from the devastation inflicted by the civil war.
Picture: (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)