Lebanon’s industry minister Pierre Gemayel is murdered near Beirut
November 21, 2006, 5:21 PM (GMT+02:00)
The Christian minister’s convoy was attacked driving through the Christian Sin el-Fil district as Lebanon faced a Hizballah threat to the anti-Syrian Fouad Siniora government unless it is granted veto powers. Gemayel died on the way to hospital, shot at point blank range. Majority leader Saad Hariri, architect of the anti-Syrian pro-Western New Lebanon, said he sees the hand of Syria behind the murder. His own father was assassinated last year in a suspected pro-Syrian plot. US state department condemned the assassination as “an act of terror” and attempt to intimidate the government which is already shaky after the resignation of six pro-Syrian ministers, including Hizballah’s, ten days ago. It is feared the murder could tip the country over into civil war. Last week the Siniora government approved a proposed UN tribunal for the killers of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri last year, despite their resignation.
Sunday, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah threatened to call a million Shiites to the streets to topple the anti-Syrian Siniora government.
This challenge was a decisive step in the proxy standoff over domination of Beirut involving Hizballah’s backers Iran and Syria, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel, on the other.
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