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When it comes to spy stories, Ian Fleming couldn't match Lebanon – and Sister Syria – for the kind of head-spinning espionage and murder mystery now engulfing the Levant. The contents page must include the murder of a prominent pro-Iranian kidnapper and guerrilla leader in Damascus, Israeli Mossad spies, bomb explosions in both Lebanon and Syria, claims that the pro-American son of an assassinated ex-prime minister in Beirut funds an Islamist killer group – not to mention an intriguing connection to the Lebanese hijacker of United Flight 93 on 11 September 2001. If the tale is even half-true – and I've had a visitation from a Syrian suggesting his countrymen believe quite a lot of it – there has to be a bid for the film rights.
On 14 February 2005, the former prime minister and billionaire Rafik Hariri – along with 21 others – was liquidated by a massive bomb on the Beirut Corniche. The Americans and much of Lebanon suspected his Syrian enemies were to blame, and the United Nations set up an international inquiry – now the longest running police investigation in the world – into his death. The cops fingered Syria, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus protested its innocence.
A further series of murders and a bloody battle between pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian Hizbollah fighters and gunmen paid by the majority Future Movement MP Saad Hariri (son of the aforesaid Rafik) finished up with a conference in Doha which ensured that Lebanon's pro-American prime minister would lead a cabinet whose pro-Syrian opposition would have veto powers over cabinet decisions.
Add to this a prolonged siege by the Lebanese army last year to eject Palestinian Islamists of the Fatah al-Islam movement from the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp (total dead around 400, including more than 140 soldiers) and a televised "confession" by survivors of the group in Syria last weekend which fingered Saad Hariri for a suicide bombing in Damascus, and still the story doesn't end. Syria this year agreed for the first time in its history to open formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon. It should be quite a relationship.
On 14 February 2005, the former prime minister and billionaire Rafik Hariri – along with 21 others – was liquidated by a massive bomb on the Beirut Corniche. The Americans and much of Lebanon suspected his Syrian enemies were to blame, and the United Nations set up an international inquiry – now the longest running police investigation in the world – into his death. The cops fingered Syria, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus protested its innocence.
A further series of murders and a bloody battle between pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian Hizbollah fighters and gunmen paid by the majority Future Movement MP Saad Hariri (son of the aforesaid Rafik) finished up with a conference in Doha which ensured that Lebanon's pro-American prime minister would lead a cabinet whose pro-Syrian opposition would have veto powers over cabinet decisions.
Add to this a prolonged siege by the Lebanese army last year to eject Palestinian Islamists of the Fatah al-Islam movement from the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp (total dead around 400, including more than 140 soldiers) and a televised "confession" by survivors of the group in Syria last weekend which fingered Saad Hariri for a suicide bombing in Damascus, and still the story doesn't end. Syria this year agreed for the first time in its history to open formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon. It should be quite a relationship.
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