Thousands gather for Lebanese official’s funeral

Thousands gather for Lebanese official’s funeral

BEIRUT – Thousands of Lebanese waving the national flag packed a central square in downtown Beirut yesterday for the funeral of a top intelligence official assassinated in a car bombing that many blame on the regime in neighbouring Syria.

Lebanese soldiers set up road blocks and cordoned off Martyrs Square, where Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan’s coffin, draped in a Lebanese flag, was to be brought for burial.Al-Hassan, 47, was a powerful opponent of Syria in Lebanon. He headed an investigation over the summer that led to the arrest of former Information Minister Michel Samaha, a Lebanese politician who was one of Syria’s most loyal allies in Lebanon. He was among eight people killed in the attack on Friday.’He was killed while he was defending his country,’ said Samer al-Hirri, who travelled from northern Lebanon to attend the funeral.Ahead of the burial, there was a memorial ceremony attended by government officials and al-Hassan’s wife Anna, his two sons, Majd and Mazen, and his parents.Even before Friday’s bombing, the civil war in neighbouring Syria had set off violence in Lebanon and deepened tensions between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad’s regime. The attack heightened fears that Lebanon could easily plunge back into cycles of sectarian violence and reprisal that have haunted it for decades.France’s foreign minister said it was likely that Assad’s government had a hand in the assassination. Laurent Fabius told Europe-1 radio that while it was not fully clear who was behind the attack, it was ‘probable’ that Syria played a role.’Everything suggests that it’s an extension of the Syrian tragedy,’ he said.Dozens of anti-Syrian protesters erected eight tents near the Cabinet headquarters in central Beirut, saying they will stay until Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government, which is dominated by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its allies, resigns. Hezbollah is Syria’s most powerful ally in Lebanon, which for much of the past 30 years has lived under Syrian military and political domination. – Nampa-Reuters

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