DUBAI, 16 February 2005 — Newspapers across the Middle East yesterday voiced fears for Lebanon’s future after the devastating bomb attack that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and questioned Syria’s role in its tiny neighbor.
Several dailies urged Syria’s immediate pullout from Lebanon, as demanded in UN Security Council Resolution 1559 but were divided on whether Syria or Israel was behind the assassination.
“The first fingers of suspicion point towards Israel in consideration of the fact that it is always the gainer from disturbing stability and security in Lebanon,” Asharq Al-Awsat wrote on its front page.
“Who killed Hariri on Valentine’s Day?” asked Okaz newspaper.
But many Lebanese were accusing Syria because of Hariri’s differences with Damascus, it added under a headline asking, “Who gains from killing Hariri?”
“If Syria is unable to ‘preserve security’ in Lebanon, as several recent incidents indicate, it must leave Lebanon immediately,” Kuwait’s leading Al-Watan daily wrote in a front-page editorial.
“If those bombings always target those who oppose the Syrian presence in Lebanon, this means that Syria is (perhaps) involved in those bombings.”
The bombing “indicates the extent of political bankruptcy they have reached” — an apparent reference to the pro-Syrian regime in Lebanon and their patrons in Damascus, said the rival Al-Siyassah daily.
In Beirut, the press voiced anguish for the future, with the Daily Star saying the main concern was “how to prevent Lebanon from tottering over the brink of an abyss”.
As-Safir said murdering the five-time premier and billionaire businessman had “decapitated Lebanon” while L’Orient Le-Jour said it “killed hope”.
Egypt’s Al-Gomhuria daily said the assassination aimed to “subvert the interests of the Lebanese people, undermine their solidarity and shake their will. Syria is now at the center of institutionalized accusation and criticism”.
“Lebanese people should throw their ethnic and religious differences behind them and strive for unity,” it added.
Others saw his death as a part of a foreign plot to spread chaos in a region already shaken by violence in Iraq, where some fear a sectarian civil war similar to that, which tore Lebanon apart from 1975 to 1990.
The press in Israel was the most unequivocal in pointing the finger of blame at archenemy Damascus. The front-page headline in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily read ‘Syria’s Revenge’.
“If he had any illusions of renewing the peace process, Bashar Al-Assad yesterday put Syria, and himself, on the axis of international evil,” it said.
Iran said Israel, which invaded the Lebanese capital in 1982, had the resources to carry out the attack. Security sources said the bomb, which killed Hariri had the explosive power of 300 kg of dynamite.
“An organized terrorist entity like that of the Zionist regime has the capability to carry out such operations and it targets breaking unity and solidarity in Lebanon,” a state-owned Iranian newspaper quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying.
“The only country that profits from instability in Lebanon is Israel,” wrote the government-owned reformist Iran.
“Suggestions that Syria is behind the assassination are doubtful,” the daily said, nonetheless admitting that Damascus would have found any Hariri political comeback as “intolerable”.
“The Shiite victory in the Iraqi elections naturally strengthens the Shiites in Lebanon, who only stand to lose from an event that allows Mossad to achieve its objectives,” said the reformist Etemad.
The paper also linked the attack to Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, saying it was a bid to create difficulties for pro-Palestinian forces, including Syria and the Lebanese-based Hezbollah movement.
The ultra-conservative Jomhouri Eslami said the killing “opened a new era of crisis” in Lebanon.
Heralded by many as the father of Lebanon’s post-war reconstruction, Hariri was killed at a time of high tension over Syrian political and military dominance in its tiny neighbor.
“Lebanon at a crossroads after Hariri’s assassination,” headlined the UAE’s Al-Bayan government newspaper.
“The danger of this explosion... is not just because it has targeted a prominent Lebanese personality... but because it comes at a difficult times for Lebanon and the entire Arab region,” it added.
Lebanon’s anti-Syrian opposition accused the Syrian and Lebanese regimes of responsibility for Hariri’s death, calling for Syrian troops to withdraw and the Damascus-backed government of Prime Minister Omar Karameh to resign.
“The opposition seized this crime to strengthen their campaign against the regime and its Syrian ally in calling for international intervention to pull the Syrian Army out of Lebanon,” said Al-Bayan.
Syrian state media said Syria had embraced Hariri “as one of its own sons”. Al-Thawra newspaper said: “Matters should be put on the right track — the real target of the assassination of Hariri is Lebanon and its national unity and civil peace.”
