Lebanon hunts general”s killers
Lebanon is Thursday preparing to ask for United Nations help in its hunt for the still-unknown assassins of a senior army general, whose killing has worsened a festering political crisis.
“The investigation is now in the hands of judicial authorities,” a military spokesman told AFP, refusing to give any further details.
“We will not rest until the truth is revealed,” he added.
The Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said it will ask a UN commission, which is
already investigating the string of political murders, to help with technical assistance.
“The council of ministers has decided to instruct the prime minister to ask the UN secretary general to provide (Lebanon) with technical assistance from the international investigation commission,” a statement said.
The UN is probing the assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri and of seven other anti-Syrian figures over the past three years.
Judicial officials declined to discuss the probe into the murder Wednesday of Brigadier General Francois el-Hajj, who was killed along with his bodyguard in a massive car bomb attack.
A police source said three Lebanese men had been arrested late Wednesday on the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon.
“They are being questionned in connection with the licence plate of a BMW car, found on the site of the blast” in Baabda, southeast of Beirut, the source said on condition of anonymity.
Records from the motor vehicle department have shown that each one of the men had owned the car sometime in the past, but that there was no clear evidence to incriminate them, the source said.
The army has said a BMW packed with 30 kilogrammes (77 pounds) of explosives detonated as Hajj drove past, killing him and bodyguard Khairallah Hedwan. The Red Cross said eight people were wounded.
It was not clear if the licence plate found by investigators at the scene of the bombing belonged to the booby-trapped car that killed Hajj.
On Wednesday journalists saw security forces detain a bearded man near the bombing site and at least one newspaper, the respected As-Safir daily, suggested that Islamist militants could be behind the attack.
No one has claimed responsibility for the killing.
Hajj, the army”s operations chief, gained prominence during a 15-week battle this past summer between the army and an Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist group at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Several officials said his assassination was linked to the current crisis over the presidency and possibly the
battle at Nahr al-Bared camp, which ended in September.
Hajj”s murder “should be a catalyst to speed up the election of a president within constitutional procedures,” Siniora told the cabinet, which he convened after chairing a security meeting, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said.
“We all must aim for one goal, the election of General Michel Sleiman as president,” he added.
Hajj was tipped to succeed Sleiman as army chief, if he became president to replace Emile Lahoud who quit on November 23 at the end of his term.
But parliament”s ruling majority deputies and legislators from the opposition, backed by Syria and Iran, have been at loggerheads to elect Sleiman.
The crisis is the worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Hajj”s murder triggered a chorus of condemnation across the globe and warnings it could further destabilise Lebanon.
In Hajj”s souther hometown of Rmeish on the border with Israel, family and friends prepared for the general”s burial on Friday, which would follow a ceremonial funeral near Beirut.