BEIRUT: Parliament’s majority leader Saad Hariri has lashed out at Syria in the wake of a deadly car bombing targeting the Lebanese army, accusing Damascus of posing “a clear and direct threat” to Lebanon.
“The Lebanese will not let Bashar Al-Assad’s words go unnoticed,” Hariri said late Monday, reacting to comments by the Syrian president.
Assad on Sunday told the head of Lebanon’s journalists union, Melhem Karam, that northern Lebanon had become a base for extremists and posed a threat to his country.
“His words are a clear and direct threat to the sovereignty of Lebanon and the north in particular,” Hariri said.
He said Assad’s underlying message was that Lebanon, and the northern region in particular that has been gripped by sectarian fighting, was to blame for insecurity in Syria. Hariri also denounced last week’s deployment of Syrian troops along Lebanon’s northern borders, charging that the aim was to terrorize the Lebanese rather than crack down on smuggling. He urged the international community not to allow Syria to intervene in Lebanese affairs under the guise of fighting extremism.
Meanwhile, Security officials say a civilian and a soldier have died of wounds inflicted by the explosion in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, raising the death toll to seven.
The dead from Monday’s explosion include five soldiers and two civilians, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The remote-control car bomb that ripped through a military bus in Tripoli also wounded two dozen people.
An officer believed to be linked to the 2005 assassination of then-Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was the target of the blast on Saturday, an Italian report said yesterday.
Syrian opposition sources told the Italian news agency Adnkronos International that explosion targeted the deputy director of the Palestinian Branch of Syrian Intelligence, officer Abdul Karim Abbas.
The sources said that the Independent International Investigation Committee charged with investigating the assassination of Hariri, had previously heard testimony from Abbas.
