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Truth Squad
114 Posts |
 Posted - 09/27/2005 : 9:59:27 PM
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Lebanon's pro-Syrian Defense Minister Elias El-Murr has detonated a bombshell by suggesting for the first time that Syria's former intelligence chief Rustom Ghazaleh may have engineered the abortive attempt to assassinate him 3 months ago. He made his dramatic accusation in a telephone call - on September 26, 2005 - to the Lebanese TV channel LBCI from Zurich, where he is recuperating from injuries he suffered in a car-bomb explosion that he mysteriously escaped July 12, 2005.
El-Murr narrated:
"A problem had developed between me and Syria's representative in Lebanon (Rustum Ghazaleh) the day a terrorist network preparing to bomb the Italian embassy was uncovered, triggering anti-government riots in Majdal Anjar and the death of a detainee in jail. A verbal quarrel flared between myself and Ghazaleh after he had called Brig. Gen. Saeed Eid, commander of Lebanon's gendarmerie, at 3 a.m. before dawn to tongue-lash me a year ago. I immediately called Rustom Ghazaleh and took the necessary stance out of my conviction that a non-Lebanese officer should not be allowed under any pretext to scold a Lebanese officer," said El-Murr, who then was Vice Premier and Interior Minister in the pro-Syrian cabinet of slain PM Rafiq Hariri.
El-Murr continued:
"General Eid, who was listening on my call to Rustom Ghazaleh, told me 'it's time for you to pack and go home'. I was informed afterwards that moves were set in motion against me through Syrian workers who clashed with a Lebanese group. I later got wind about threats against me personally. In January of 2005, I left Lebanon because the security services were not interested in protecting me and stayed away until I was appointed vice premier and defense minister in Premier Mikati's government and then the current government."
El-Murr tried to justify the delay in disclosing this information by saying that May Chidiac's murder attempt made him incapable of keeping silent any longer.
It is important to recall that following the attempt on Elias El-Murr's life on July 12, 2005, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt claimed that the attack was aimed at silencing a man who could potentially give incriminating evidence to international investigators still probing the Hariri murder. "There is a plot to eliminate all the witnesses or everyone able to give information on the assassination of Rafiq Hariri," Jumblatt told the same Lebanese private satellite channel LBCI.
Soon after Jumblatt's claim, Elias El-Murr - from his hospital bed - rushed to deny that he possessed any information that would help the investigation in Hariri's assassination saying then "if I had any such information, I would have disclosed it to the authorities in charge." He went on to accuse Islamic fundamentalists of engineering the attack on his convoy.
If what El-Murr said on September 26 to LBCI is true, then by delaying the disclosure of this information, he has helped the culprits by hiding important information from the investigators. If it is not true, then he is lying, and he is directly obstructing justice by feeding the world, through news media, false information. In any civilized country, El-Murr would be asked to resign his cabinet post and would be thoroughly investigated and perhaps tried for obstruction of justice over his flip-flops, despite his physical condition. Will Lebanon ever become a civilized country?
N.B. Most of the members of today's - after Syria's withdrawal - cabinet and Parliament in Lebanon (including most of Hariri's and Jumblat's blocs) occupied similar government offices during the Syrian era in Lebanon and served at the will of Syrian officers. |
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Bullocks
66 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 01:27:16 AM
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Except if islamist extremists (like the secret movement al jihad al islami) were conducting syria's will?
Then he would have been holding some information concerning syria, but would've been telling the truth concerning those directly responsible (islamist extremists) for conducting such attack.
By the way, the US Marine Corps barracks and the French paratrooper barracks bombing in 1983 in Lebanon was never claimed by Hizballah, even though it didn't go against Hizballah's ideology (as they claim). So Hizballah refuse to take responsibility of the 1983 attacks, even though they admit that they had similar intentions and that they supported that attack. Hizballah officials claim that the attack was carried out by Al Jihad l'Islami, which is more or less a secret organisation.
The fact that they had a trucks containing 5400Kg of TNT in both attacks reminds us of the attack on the Hariri convoy in a similar manner.
The fact that the suicide bombing of the marine base was followed by another identical attack on the french base 20 seconds later also reminds us of al qaeda-style bombings around the world.
So this raises the question? Those who had the capability to blow up 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers will certainly still have the capability to blow up Hariri's convoy, and to booby trap May's car in bright daylight - and also to do the rest of the attacks.
Elias l'Murr accused those islamic groups of the attack. And then he accused the Syria government. And it is highly plausible that the syrian government - in this region of the world - is mobilizing these extremist muslims and financing them to do such attacks.
Of course, in other regions of the world, there would be someone else (i.e. other governments) supporting these extremist islamist groups to play into their motives.
This is highly speculative
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Truth Squad
114 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 10:33:20 AM
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Accusing the Assad regime of supporting Islamic extremists is reminiscent of the accusations against Saddam's regime of supporting Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations leveled against that regime by the Bush administration on the eve of the attack on Iraq.
Regardless of how one feels about these regimes, and regardless whether we agree or disagree with their policies, we owe it to our conscience to be truthful:
Saddam did not support Al-Qaeda and had nothing to do with their attack on the USA on 9/11/01. The Bush administration admitted that truth 2 years after they leveled Baghdad.
The Assad regime, despite how we as Lebanese feel towards it, has historically worked to crush Islamic extremist uprisings in Syria – remember Hama bombing by Assad Sr. Yes, the Syrian regime may be supporting some of the insurgents in Iraq but we have yet to see any concrete evidence of that.
The same goes towards what happened and is happening in Lebanon: from the attempt on Marwan Hamadé’s life through Hariri’s assassination up to the attempt on Chidiac’s life. We have yet to see a single shred of evidence – other than politicians’ speak - implicating the Assad regime in these attacks.
Mehlis investigation apart, there are no serious investigations in any of the other attacks on Lebanon; as if Lebanon has become the Hariris’ exclusive domain and nobody else counts. The Seniora cabinet seems to be saying to us: until we know who killed Rafiq Hariri, the Lebanese people will have to remain hostage of the terrorists, of unrest and of economic insecurity. Frankly Lebanon has been taken hostage by the most incompetent administration running the country in its recent history: - A President of the Republic totally out of touch with his people and the world.
- A Prime Minister doing nothing, except long unending speeches in a language foreign to the majority of Lebanese, full of rhetoric expressing empty emotions and saying nothing. His behavior and his lack of action are adding to the apparent divisions in the country and are speeding up the march to civil war. He comes across as the perfect toy in the hands of those shadowy regional strategists, whom his minister of internal affairs describes as “ghosts”.
- A Minister of Internal Affairs who looks and sounds more like an ugly gloomy dummy than a sensitive and rational human being; in any other nation, Hassan Essabeh would have been sacked by now over his inability to make a single arrest in all these attacks and especially over his latest “ghost” theory regarding the series of terrorist attacks in Lebanon.
- A cabinet as divided and dysfunctional as it can be.
In brief, what we have is a totally dysfunctional government from head to toe whose only “raison d’être” seems to be waiting for Godot and Godot will never come or for some the desire to hold on to “power” for as long as they can.
Hassan Essabeh should have been doing his job, not sleeping at the wheel waiting for Mehlis’investigation to move.
Simply put, Syria may have assassinated Hariri as her last game in Lebanon: it played the “Joker”, but then things changed. The Assad regime realized that they have lost and pulled out. Unless we were to believe that Syria is run by a bunch of criminal idiots, it does not make sense to accuse Syria of this series of terrorist acts in Lebanon, without putting that in a regional and strategic context.
What we need is a long-overdue serious investigation run by a competent team other than Seniora and Sabeh. Only through diligent and academic investigations we can get to real results and only then we can level true accusations and conduct serious prosecutions against the Syrian regime, Islamic extremists or whoever the investigations show to be responsible.
Finally, I would caution everyone how they word their accusations. If indeed the Syrian Assad regime is involved in these terrorist attacks on Lebanon, then it is the regime that must be prosecuted not Syria and not the Syrian people. Whatever beef we may have with the Assad regime in Syria, it must be distinguished from the Syrian people; for the Syrian people are our neighbors and our friends and many of us are related to Syrians by blood.
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PaxLibano
France
39 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 3:26:17 PM
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| Truth: give Elias l'Murr a break. The guy came close to death. Why would he lie about his suspects? Bullocks may be correct on this one: it is possible that the actual acts of terrorism are condcuted on the ground in Lebanon by extremist Islamic organizations, but in coordination and maybe at the request of the Syrians. I agree with you though that the government of Seniora has been negligent in this regard since they took office and must be held accountable. |
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Jean
Lebanon
50 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 6:21:02 PM
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| Regardless who it is, we need to find them out and bring them to justice and the Seniora government isn't doing much in that direction. They seem to be hibernating waiting for Mehlis to tell them who killed Rfiq Hariri. As if people in Lebanon are no longer supposed to live in peace or just live in one piece, if we don't find who killed Hariri. We put everything on hold until then? This thing may take 10 years! do we keep having explosions and killing civilians until then? |
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Justice For All
Lebanon
20 Posts |
Posted - 09/28/2005 : 10:31:59 PM
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I dunno if you guyes were listening to Gibran Tueini on Kalam Ennas on LBC today. He said that may be Elias ElMurr had Stokholm syndrome and he just recovered from it. He was afraid to accuse his abusers initially.
So yes he could have been telling the truth in his call to Marcel Ghanem and he could have told the truth earlier when he said Islamic fundementelists attacked him. like Bullocks said, they could be working together the Syrians, the fundamentelists and the terrorists in palestinian camps. |
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Truth Squad
114 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2005 : 9:44:47 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Bullocks
By the way, the US Marine Corps barracks and the French paratrooper barracks bombing in 1983 in Lebanon was never claimed by Hizballah, even though it didn't go against Hizballah's ideology (as they claim). So Hizballah refuse to take responsibility of the 1983 attacks, even though they admit that they had similar intentions and that they supported that attack. Hizballah officials claim that the attack was carried out by Al Jihad l'Islami, which is more or less a secret organisation. The fact that they had a trucks containing 5400Kg of TNT in both attacks reminds us of the attack on the Hariri convoy in a similar manner.
The fact that the suicide bombing of the marine base was followed by another identical attack on the french base 20 seconds later also reminds us of al qaeda-style bombings around the world. So this raises the question? Those who had the capability to blow up 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers will certainly still have the capability to blow up Hariri's convoy, and to booby trap May's car in bright daylight - and also to do the rest of the attacks.
Bullocks, you forgot one thing: in 1983, the Cold War was at its peak and Lebanon was a stage. No one doubts Syria's role in (at least Syria's blessing of) those attacks. But everyone knows that Nato's presence in Lebanon then posed a real threat to the USSR. When the US destroyer New Jersey was bombarding the peaks of Mount Lebanon, it was not to support Amine Gemayyel's war on Walid Jumblatt. It was to destroy Soviet strategic long-range missiles there that were threatening Europe's security. On the other hand, there was no Al-Qaeda in 1983 and Bin Laden was still a favorite son of the CIA fighting their war against the USSR in Pakistan.
Let's not confuse the attacks on Lebanon today with those of the cold war some 23 years ago.
Today's attacks have but one motive: shake the status-quo in Lebanon in one of 4 directions:
1) Put pressure on Aoun's camp to side with Hariri in ousting Lahoud; for Aoun + Hariri = 94 MPs enough to amend the constitution and shorten Lahoud's term; hence the attacks on Aoun's sector.
2) Push the Christians to demand a change in the current cabinet, the way Sunnis did with Omar Karami (tid for tad). After all the Seniora cabinet has proven to be negligent (I dare say criminally negligent) or at best incompetent.
3) Push the Lebanese people to demand foreign protection which could lead to foreign intervention and what have you.
4) Set the stage for a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon over the issue of security.
I leave it to you to speculate as to the beneficiaries in each scenario. |
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The Whip
42 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2005 : 12:26:03 AM
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Let's not all forget that last week, the international investigation team in Hariri's assassination requested that bank secrecy be lifted off Murr's bank accounts. A few hours later, that request was declared an error!!!
Did that surprise anyone of you or just me?
Why would such a sophisticated team make such stupid mistakes? Suspecting the vice PM and the minister of defense and the son-in-law of the President and the son of a prominent MP and a wealthy businessman and then suddenly withdraw its suspicion?
Did anyone enter as a mediator between Mehlis and Murr and promised on behalf of Elias Murr cooperation with Mehlis and perhaps compliance with his requests?
Was the latest Murr declaration on LBC, in which he accused Syria of conspiring to kill him, offered as a quid pro quo in exchange of withdrawing Mehlis request to lift the secrecy of Murr's bank accounts?
I am not too much into conspiracy theories but I agree with Truth, Murr's story is at best suspicious and warrants a more thorough investigation. |
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Truth Squad
114 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2005 : 3:34:11 PM
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I wish everyone would wait until the Mehlis report is delivered to the UN and published. Then we can really tell who said what and who did what. Only then we can begin to really know whether Syria "will be" involved in Hariri's assassination or not.
My guess is that the report will be preliminary in nature and may request additional time to rap up the investigations. It may take literally up to 10 years, similar to the Lockerby investigations.
Meanwhile, we have to decide if we wait another 10 years under the threat of terrorism protected only by Seniora's incompetent government or do we live and let live while we wait.
Those who believe that Mehlis report in October will be deliver conclusive accusations are in for a big surprise.
So my recommendation for the Hariri administration is to change their policies and tactics or we'll change them altogether.
We will not have our country and our people taken hostage by a family and a group whose only interest seems to be in executing vengeance for the killing of their godfather.
We deserve in Lebanon to live and prosper in peace. We deserve a government who plans ahead, with alternative strategies, and who knows what they are doing.
The Syrians are out. It is our time, the Lebanese people, to take the reins of power in our country, and overthrow the table on Ali-Baba's 40+ thieves. |
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Eyad
Lebanon
24 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2005 : 3:12:51 PM
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There is no doubt about it. Elias El-Murr was exaggerating if not lying flat out.
He saw the pendulum of guilt in Hariri swinging towards Syria, he wanted to jump on the bandwagon, being a part of the Seniora cabinet. What else do you expect from him?
If he stays on Lahoud's side he was going to loose. So he decided to swing himself. If Syria is found guilty, then he saved his ass by being on Hariri's side.
If Syria is not guilty, he has always his father-in-law to come to the rescue.
What a sneeky slimeball! |
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Is Elias El-Murr Telling the Truth????
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