Lebanese bury assassinated general

 

Lebanese politicians and military officers bade a mournful farewell to an assassinated general Friday in a funeral that briefly united the deeply divided country. 
 
Hundreds of grieving Lebanese stood in a downpour along the route of Maj. Gen. Francois Hajj”s flag-draped casket from his home in a Beirut suburb to the Maronite Catholic basilica in the Christian mountain heartland north of the capital.

 

“Their bloody message will not scare us,” read one banner, refering to the still unknown killers, along a road also hung with Lebanese flags. An elderly woman threw rose petals in front of the procession as it passsed through the port of Jounieh.

 

Lebanon has been shaken by a string of assassinations since 2005 but Hajj was the first figure to be killed from the military — seen as the sole institution holding the country together.

 

“They killed Hajj because he was a clean leader, a poor and wise man with foresight,” said Kafa Makhlouf, a 45-year-old Christian homemaker who drove an hour to Harisa, the mountain town overlooking the Mediterranean where the funeral mass was held.

 

There was no claim of responsibility for the bombing. Military investigators are focusing on the possibility Hajj was killed by Islamic militants because he led a three-month military campaign this summer that crushed an al-Qaida-inspired group, Fatah Islam, in the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.

 

On Thursday, security agents in the southern city of Sidon detained four Lebanese in whose names the car used in the bombing was registered. The men were detained from a neighborhood near the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, where Islamic militant groups are known to operate.

 

But Defense Minister Elias Murr, speaking on Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. television late Thursday, said he would not limit the suspects to just “criminal terrorists” — a reference to Islamic militants.

 

Murr, who survived a similar car bombing with severe injuries in 2005, said there “were serious and advanced leads this time, much more than in the other crimes,” but gave no details.

 

Investigators are also looking into the possibility Hajj was killed in connection to the dispute over the presidency.

Hajj was expected to succeed Army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman — seen as a likely consensus candidate to become president, a post left empty since Emile Lahoud”s term ended Nov. 23. Supporters of the Western-backed government and the opposition, led by pro-Syrian Hezbollah have been unable to agree on a successor.

 

Pro-government and opposition politicians — Christian and Muslim — including a delegation from Hezbollah, which leads the opposition, attended the funeral mass, led by Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, Patriarch of the Maronite Church.

 

Bells tolled while pallbearers from various army units carried the coffin into the basilica, as hundreds of mourners applauded and threw rose petals at the casket.

 

Suleiman saluted before the coffin.

 

The army chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Shawki Masri, promised in a eulogy the military would “not rest until the murderers are apprehended and punished” and called on the government and opposition to set aside their differences and work to end the political deadlock.

 

“In unity, we will have the strength and we can achieve the impossible,” said Masri, the highest-ranking officer from the Druse sect, an offshoot of Islam.

 

A message from Pope Benedict XVI, blessing Hajj and offering condolences, was read by a bishop. The Pope condemned the “unjustified violence” and called on Lebanese politicians to reconcile.

 

After the mass, the coffin was driven halfway across Lebanon for burial in Hajj”s hometown of Rmeish, near the southern border with Israel.

 

Hajj”s driver, Khairallah Hadwan, a Shiite, who was also killed in Wednesday”s blast in Baabda, was buried in the eastern Bekaa Valley. The yellow banner of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that dominates the area, hung on a wall as a show of condolence as Islamic prayers were read before his casket in a mosque. President Bush condemned the assassination and took a tough tone against Syria, calling on it to stop interference in Lebanon — although he did not accuse Damascus in the slaying.

 

Some anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon accused Damascus of being behind the bombing to scuttle the presidential election but muted their rhetoric after Suleiman called on factions to avoid “politicizing” Hajj”s death.

 

Picture: REUTERS/Emile Dalal (LEBANON)