BEIRUT, 16 December 2005 — Several parliamentary deputies and ministers received a “hit list” of alleged anti-Syrian targets including Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. The “hit list includes Jumblatt, current Druze Minister of Telecommunications Marwan Hamadeh, Druze deputy Wael Abu Faoor, Christian deputies Samir Franjiyeh, Elias Attalah and Fari Makari,” a Lebanese government source said.
The six are all members of the anti-Syrian majority in Parliament that swept the elections in June, the first after Syria’s withdrawal in April ended 30 years of political and military domination.
The outgoing chief of the United Nations team investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said earlier yesterday there was a link between the spate of assassinations since his death. “We will have to look and we are looking for links between the assassinations... pretty obviously, there are links between all the assassinations that happened after the death of Hariri,” German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis told CNN on the final day of his inquiry’s current mandate.
His comments came three days after the slaying of anti-Syrian deputy and journalist, Gebran Tueni, in a Beirut car bomb attack on Monday.
Mehlis also called on the UN Security Council to produce a “strong” resolution on the Hariri assassination after his latest report cited renewed evidence suggesting that Syrian officers were involved.
In Beirut, Lebanon Central Bank employees were evacuated yesterday following a bomb alert. Bank employees were immediately evacuated, but nothing was found, security sources said.
