Shiites Don”t Want the Faqih Rule, al-Qaida Killed Hariri
Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun said Shiites don”t want to impose the Faqih rule in Lebanon and believed al-Qaida was behind ex-Premier Rafik Hariri”s assassination.
"The Shiites of Lebanon don”t want the Faqih rule project. Furthermore, the country”s demography doesn”t allow that to happen," Aoun told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in an interview published Saturday.
Turning to Hariri”s Feb. 2005 murder, Aoun said: "A weapon (other than that of Hizbullah) is present on Lebanese territories and carrying out massacres against the army. This weapon (which belongs to Fatah al-Islam) is still carrying out bombings and causing casualties such as the blasts in Tripoli and Metn, in addition to the biggest explosion, meaning ex-Premier Rafik Hariri”s assassination."
The FPM leader believed al-Qaida carried out Hariri”s killing.
Aoun has also reassured the Lebanese that the government will be formed by the end of the week but expressed pessimism at what he called lingering "Saudi guardianship."
"We are in the last stages and on the verge of forming" the cabinet, Aoun told Asharq al-Awsat.
He expected the government to be formed by the end of the week "if nothing extraordinary happened."
Aoun stressed that he was in continuous contact with Premier-designate Saad Hariri denying reports that "contacts have reached a dead-end."
He blamed the mentality of those bickering over top posts for the delay in government formation. Aoun also said his foes were attacking his FPM "as if we are rivals dueling in front of electorates rather than serving them."
Such a bickering "deprives the cabinet of its consensus formula," he added.