Tears, Wrath and Calls for Vengeance Mark Funeral of Slain Police Counter-Terrorism Officer

Women, their eyes brimming with tears, ululated in grief as men, faces pouring wrath, waved clinched fists, chanted Islam”s war cry of Allah Akbar and called for vengeance during the funeral procession in north Lebanon of two slain counter-terrorism police officers.

 

Floods of mourners marched in the funeral processions of Maj. Wissam Eid and Aspirant Officer Ousama Mireeb in the northern towns of Deir Ammar and Tripoli on Saturday chanting an Islamic slogan pledging that “Killers are to be killed”.

 

“Those who shed your blood, their blood would be shed,” the mourners chanted.

 

The pledge for vengeance was repeated during prayers at Tripoli”s Tinal Mosque, especially when Eid”s father, Mahmoud, kissed his son”s coffin that was draped in a Lebanese flag.

 

Several mourners opened fire in the air from automatic rifles as Mireeb”s funeral progressed slowly across the crowded streets of Tripoli into the family residence at the Bab Tabbaneh district, prior to burial in Bab al-Raml grave Yard.

 

In Deir Ammar, Eid”s hometown that is close to the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp where Fatah al-Islam terrorists were entrenched last summer, Wrath rather than grief, marked the procession.

 

Mosque minerates blared chants of “Allah Akbar” (God is Great), which is rather a war cry in Islam seldom used in funeral processions.

 

“The Martyrs are beloved by Allah, and the criminals are Allah”s enemies,” mourners shouted, waving clinched

fists to express anger, amidst the crackling of automatic rifle fire.

 

Several chants attacking Syria and the regime of President Bashar Assad were made by mourners in Tripoli and Deir Ammar, as the bodies of Mirreb and Eid were carried to their respective graves.

 

The crime that also killed three civilians and wounded more than 40 has been perceived as an attempt aimed at destroying state institutes in trouble-ridden Lebanon.

 

Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, commenting on the assassination said “what is going on aims at stripping the country of all its constitutional institutes.”

 

The patriarch added that “what is happening is not an act carried out by Lebanese only, it involves participation from outside Lebanon, it aims at fragmenting the country.”

 

“The hidden scheme has been exposed, it is a programmed destruction of all institutes, no red lines,” the patriarch cautioned.

 

The March 14 alliance blamed Eid”s crime on Syria and accused the Damascus Regime and its allies in the Hizbullah-led opposition of blocking implementation of the Arab initiative that supports election of Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman President.

 

Eid, 31, played major roles in analyzing mobile telephone and e-mail contacts related to the assassinations of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri in 2005, the twin bus bombings of Ein Alaq in 2007 and the assassination of Gen. Francois Hajj, chief of the army”s military operation on Jan. 12, 2007.

 

His work, according to ranking security officials, also managed to detect “established links” between Fatah al-Islam terrorists and Syria”s intelligence apparatus.

 

Such evidences compiled by the late Eid could help “implicate Syria” in the serial killings that targeted Lebanon since Oct. 1, 2004, when minister of communications Marwan Hamade suffered serious wounds in a car bomb assassination attempt.

 

Picture: Lebanese police honor guards, center, carry the coffin of Capt. Wissam Eid who was assassinated on Friday by a car bomb, as police officers and relatives attend his funeral procession at the Lebanese police headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday Jan. 26, 2008. A car bomb killed on Friday one of Lebanon”s top terrorism investigators who was probing assassinations of prominent anti-Syrian figures and a series of other attacks in recent years. Capt. Wissam Eid, 31, worked for the police intelligence agency which is closely tied to the Western-backed government and had survived two previous assassination attempts.

(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

 

Picture: Lebanon”s Internal Security Forces Chief, Brigadier General Ashraf Rifi, stands over the coffin of assassinated intelligence officer Wissam Eid during his funeral procession at the ISF headquarters in Beirut. Rifi has vowed to fight what he called “the empire of terror”, ahead of the funeral of Eid, who was killed by a car bomb with four other people.
(AFP/Ramzi Haidar)