Army officers, politicians attend Hajj memorial
Lebanese Army officials and political figures stressed on Saturday slain Brigadier Francois al-Hajj’s sacrifices in fighting terrorism and his role in strengthening the military institution’s unity. Speaking on behalf of army chief General Jean Kahwaji during a Mass commemorating the second anniversary of Hajj’s assassination in December 2007, Colonel Nabil Qoraa stressed that Hajj’s death strengthened the unity and immunity of the military institution in face of terrorism in all its forms.
The memorial celebrated at Mar Elias Church was attended by representatives of President Michel Sleiman, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Premier Saad Hariri along with several MPs and political party members as well as a representative of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.
“The Lebanese Army succeeded at dismantling many of the terrorist cells which targeted unarmed military officials north of Lebanon in 2008 in addition to arresting major terrorist figures thus putting an end to attempts to tamper with citizen’s lives and taking the country from a state of confusion to a state of security and stability,” Qoraa said.
Hajj’s son, Elie said the family did not welcome all the speculations raised in the media over the brigadier’s assassination, adding that only when the truth is fully uncovered on who was responsible for the killing that the news should announced.
“The question remains who and why … a question we leave to political and security figures the responsibility to answer,” Elie said.
Speaking on behalf of Sfeir, Bishop Shukrallah al-Hajj stressed that Hajj’s death did not weaken the Lebanese Army’s morale but rather turned the institution into a united fortress in face of all attempts to instigate sectarian schism and division.
Hajj was the head of the army operations department and one of the key officers who planned the campaign against the Fatah al-Islam group in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp north of Lebanon in 2007.
Following 106 days of clashes the camp was reduced to rubble and more than 30,000 fled the fighting. About 220 militants and 171 soldiers died in the bitter fighting, while Palestinian officials put the civilian death toll there at 47.
In November, confessions of the head of Fatah al-Islam in Tripoli Abdel-Ghani Ali Jawhar and Saudi suspect Obeid Mubarak Abed al-Kafil exposed that the terrorist cell was responsible for smuggling Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker al-Abssi into Syria and that it plotted the attacks against Hajj, ISF Captain Wissam Eid and a battalion of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon.