FOUR LEBANESE INDICTED IN PREMIER’S KILLING
Farnaz Fassihi
Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2011
The United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon [has] issued indictments and arrest warrants for four Lebanese nationals affiliated with Hezbollah for involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The indictments, handed to Lebanon’s chief prosecutor, deliver a heavy blow to Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite party that the U.S. has labeled a terrorist group. Hezbollah, which has denied any involvement, has tried to soften the damage to its reputation, accusing the court of being influenced by Israel and the U.S.
The names of the indicted individuals haven’t been publicly released, but people in the judiciary and Lebanese media identified them as Mustafa Badreddine, Salim al-Ayyash, Hasan Aineysseh and Asad Sabra.
Mr. Badreddine and Mr. Ayyash are both well-known senior commanders in Hezbollah. Mr. Badreddine serves as Hezbollah’s chief operation officer and is a primary suspect…in the assassination.… [Mr. Badreddine [is] also suspected of orchestrating a string of terrorist strikes on U.S. targets, including the 1983 bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen].
Mr. Ayyash commands Hezbollah’s Execution Unit—organizing foot soldiers on the ground—and is accused of leading the cell that carried out the assassination.… Little information is available on Messrs. Aineysseh and Sabra other than their affiliation with Hezbollah.…
The court’s findings, the contents of which are confidential for now, present a complicated challenge for [Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s newly formed government], which is heavily aligned with Hezbollah and backed by Iran and Syria. If the government complies with the court’s mandate and arrests the suspects, Lebanon could unravel with sectarian clashes between Sunnis supporting the tribunal and Shiites loyal to Hezbollah. But if the government ignores the indictments, it will appear to be obstructing justice and lose credibility among many Lebanese and the international community.…
The tribunal’s investigation, particularly into alleged Hezbollah involvement, has been a source of deep divisions among Sunni and Shiites factions. The pro-Western Sunni faction views the tribunal as a symbol of justice being served in a country and region with a long history of political assassinations with no accountability. The pro-Iran and Syria Shiites faction says the case has been manipulated to blame them at a time when their patrons are under international pressure.
Lebanon’s government collapsed in January, when a coalition led by Hezbollah resigned from the cabinet over disagreements about how the government should handle the pending indictments and forced the overthrow of then-Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the son of the slain former premier.
Mr. Hariri [has] urged the government to cooperate with the court and called the indictments “a turning point in the history of fighting organized political crime in Lebanon and the Arab world.”
WHY HEZBOLLAH HAD A REALLY BAD WEEK
David Schenker
New Republic, July 1, 2011
Back in 2006, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah was riding high. Having fought the Israeli army to a standstill, the organization’s leader Hassan Nasrallah declared “divine victory.” The war was a public relations coup for the militia, which emerged from the campaign as the most favorable personification of Shiism in the largely Sunni Muslim world. So impressive was the alleged victory that the campaign sparked a widely reported trend of conversion to Shiite Islam in the region. But if 2006 was a divine victory, this week’s Special Tribunal on Lebanon (STL) indictments of four Hezbollah officials and affiliates in connection to the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, may prove a divine defeat.
While the first reports of a Hezbollah role in the assassination of Hariri surfaced some two years ago, the formal announcement of the indictments will likely serve as an exclamation point to a longer process of depreciation in the group’s reputation that started in 2008, when the organization invaded and occupied Beirut, turning the weapons of “the resistance” on the Lebanese people. That depreciation continued through 2009, when the organization’s chief financier was arrested in a Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme. More recently, in an ironic twist, Hezbollah—which at one time was known as the “Party of the Oppressed”—has emerged as the strongest regional backer of Syria’s murderous Assad regime. Straining credulity, Nasrallah himself has now given two speeches vouching for Assad’s pro-reform bona fides.
Now, for an organization that has long described itself as “the Resistance” to Israel, the revelation that it also specializes in killing Sunni Muslims will, at a minimum, be problematic. Although Nasrallah has spent the better part of the past two years trying to discredit the tribunal, few in the largely Sunni Muslim Middle East will question the court’s accusation that the militia played a central role in the murder of Hariri, the leader of Lebanon’s Sunni community. Indeed, the Arab Spring has contributed to a spike in Sunni-Shiite tensions. Pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain, for example, were largely seen by Gulf Arabs as an attempt by the Shiite theocracy in Iran to subvert the Sunni monarchy. In Syria, meanwhile, the rallying cry of the largely Sunni Muslim opposition to the Alawite Assad regime has been “No to Iran, No to Hezbollah!” Given these sentiments…the indictment will likely be seen through a largely sectarian prism.
Moreover, the accusations are bound to foment discontent within Nasrallah’s organization, and potentially result in some diminished support for the militia in Lebanon. While they will not come as a shock to anyone, of course, they will reopen old wounds, enraging Lebanon’s Sunni Muslims and, perhaps, disillusioning a few of Hezbollah’s Christian allies. At the same time, some Shiites—Hezbollahis and the organization’s constituents—will likely view the indictments as a liability and may seek to provoke another conflict with Israel, a la 2006, to distract attention from the tribunal.…
To be sure, notwithstanding the indictment of four of its lieutenants, Hezbollah will remain firmly in control of Lebanon, both politically and militarily. But the organization’s stature in the wider Muslim world will be irrevocably diminished and the change in status of this once seemingly holy Shiite organization will likewise further undermine the position of Iran and Syria in the region. It could also undermine Hezbollah in the eyes of Europe, where the militia has long benefitted from the Continent’s inexplicably tolerant view of the group’s “political” wing. Indeed, given the European Union’s expressed disgust with the ongoing atrocities perpetrated by the Assad regime and its growing frustration with the clerical regime in Tehran, the EU might be inclined to shift its views and finally lump Hezbollah in with these irredeemable regimes.
Until then, despite United Nations Resolutions calling for Lebanon to render the indicted individuals, it is all but certain Hezbollah won’t cooperate with the Special Tribunal. But while the trigger men themselves may slip the noose and be tried by the STL in absentia, the Shiite militia and its sponsors that ordered the Hariri hit will pay a steep price. Indeed, there may or may not ultimately be a conviction in The Hague, but in the Middle East court of public opinion, the verdict on Hezbollah will be guilty.
(David Schenker is Aufzien Fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.)
THE HARIRI INQUIRY: LEBANON, HEZBOLLAH, SYRIA
Dr. Josef OlmertHuffington Post, June 30, 2011
The UN can claim a small victory, as finally the International Court of Justice in The Hague formally indicted four senior Hezbollah officials and military commanders in connection with the murder of Lebanon’s Sunni Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 20 others in February 2005. The long wait is over, what was clear for years, became now formal; the Shi’ite terroristic Hezbollah, claiming to be Lebanon’s guardian against alleged Israeli Aggression committed a murder of a Sunni leader, who was a proud Lebanese patriot, thus proving its sectarian character.
Clearly, the murder was ordered by the highest echelons of Hezbollah, leading all the way to the chief leader, Sheikh Nasrallah. The former is hiding in a bunker somewhere in South Beirut, from where he has conducted a war of nerves against the International Court, his Lebanese adversaries from the Sunni community and Israel. In a particularly pathetic statement from 9 August 2010, the hidden Sheikh claimed that Israel was implicated in the assassination of Hariri. This typical attempt to deflect the guilt towards the ‘‘little Satan,” Israel, was a bad joke then, and a farce now, in light of the formal indictments. Nasrallah is required now to make a crucial decision, should he comply with the indictments and hand over his men to the International Court, or stick with his pledge never to do so.…
If Lebanon were a normal country, where government and the judicial system are in full control, the question would be irrelevant, but then Lebanon is what it is, a country traumatized by a long history of sectarian civil war, which means that every important decision of its government is determined by the fear that it could ignite another round of that war. Moreover, the current government is led by Hezbollah and its allies. Under these circumstances, Nasrallah can and will dictate the decision, but will not be able to deny his and his organization’s direct responsibility for the inevitable outcome. A refusal to comply with the International court will lead to a mayhem in Lebanon, as well as to potential international pressures and possible sanctions.…
The mayhem in the offing will revolve around the reactions of the Sunni population in Lebanon. More than a hint was provided by Sa’ad Hariri, the son of Rafiq and the former PM of Lebanon. The young Hariri is in self imposed exile in Paris, fearing for his life after an alleged assassination attempt. It is not so difficult to guess who can be behind this attempt and other threats on his life. However, Hariri issued a message to his supporters, telling them that justice is finally being done, and that those responsible for his father’s murder will not be able to escape their due punishment. His supporters understand the coded message, and they are sure to make their voice heard and quickly.…
And what about Syria? The Assad regime is not yet mentioned in the indictments, but the final word has not been said. The first head of the international inquiry, Detlev Mehlis from Germany publicly said that the Hezbollah acted as the sub-contractor of the Syrians. The Syrian Interior Minister General Ghazi Kana’an, the strongman of Assad in Lebanon committed suicide in October 2005, after allegations surfaced in Lebanon that he was behind Hariri’s assassination. According to some reports , the Assad regime got rid of the ill-fated General, before his full complicity became known. Be that as it may, the Assad regime does not really need the added headache from the unfolding Hariri report. A former Syrian dictator, Adib Shishakli once remarked that when Syria’s adversaries in Lebanon sneeze, the government in Damascus gets pneumonia. This was very true in the 1950s, and not less so now, as the Assad regime fights for its life against its Sunni opponents.…
The UN started a process [last week]. It is yet to be determined if it can bring it to an end. The answer to that question will have major bearing on the future of Lebanon and possibly that of Syria.
HASSAN NASRALLAH EXPOSED
Jonathan Spyer
Jerusalem Post, July 1, 2011
Despite its unrivaled ability to impose its will on the country, Hezbollah’s legitimacy in the eyes of non-Shi’ite Arabs in Lebanon and beyond has significantly diminished in recent years. The issuing of indictments against four Hezbollah members for the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri will only serve to accelerate and compound this process.
Once, Hezbollah presented itself and was seen as an Arab force concerned above all with making war against Israel. The movement’s ability to avoid humiliating defeat by the Jewish state thrilled Arab publics. But this moment did not last. A series of events in the past three years has served to increasingly recast Hezbollah in its original colors—as a sectarian, Shi’ite creation and ally of Iran.
The pivotal moment in this transformation of the movement’s image came when it turned its guns on its domestic Sunni opponents in May 2008. This move was made to protect the boundaries of Hezbollah’s independent military and security infrastructure. The immediate goal was achieved. But Hezbollah had maintained that its weaponry was for use against Israel alone. Its legitimacy suffered a heavy blow.
This discrepancy between Hezbollah’s matchless ability to impose its will in Lebanon and its declining legitimacy has since increased. In recent months, the movement’s support for the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, even as it brutally crushed an uprising by the Sunni majority, has further served to tarnish Hezbollah’s reputation. There is widespread fury and disgust among Lebanon’s Sunnis at the reports of possible Hezbollah involvement, alongside Iranian personnel, in crushing the protests.
Once again, the movement’s Achilles’ heel has been the irresolvable contradiction between its pan-Arab pretensions and its practical loyalties to the narrow, mainly Shi’ite, Iran-led bloc. This contradiction has now been laid bare in its most blatant form. Hezbollah members, whose guns were proclaimed as serving a notional Arab and Islamic “general will” against Israel, now stand accused of the murder of an iconic Sunni Arab politician from the very heart of the Arab mainstream.
So what is likely to happen? First of all, it is worth remembering that Hezbollah and its allies deliberately brought down the government of Saad Hariri in January in anticipation of precisely this turn of events. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah dismissed the UN tribunal investigating the Hariri killing as a mere tool of American interests. But Hariri’s government was committed to it. So Hezbollah and its allies toppled the government, and after a period of horse-trading, replaced it with a narrower cabinet consisting only of themselves.
But there are already clear indications of disagreement even within this narrower framework.
The drafting committee tasked with preparing the new government’s founding political statement found it hard to reach a consensus on the matter of its attitude toward the Hariri tribunal. Hezbollah, according to reports, wanted the new government to cut all ties with the tribunal and declare itself in open opposition to what it describes as a “US-Zionist plan.” Newly minted pro-Syrian Prime Minister Najib Mikati evidently baulked at such an unambiguous stance.
The ministerial statement finally approved [last week] preserves ambiguity. It declares the new government’s commitment to “the implementation of international resolutions, the Palestinian right of return and knowing the truth behind former PM Rafik Hariri’s assassination,” thus avoiding any concrete response on the matter of the indictments.
This solves little. Hezbollah has options, but none of them is particularly good.
At the moment, the accused men—Moustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hasan Ainessi and Asad Sabra—remain at liberty. The Lebanese authorities have 30 days to arrest them. If they do not do so, the tribunal will then make the details of the indictment public and order the suspects to appear before the court. Hezbollah has the hard power simply to refuse to cooperate with the tribunal, and to prevent by force any attempt to apprehend its members.
Such an action, however, would take the movement yet further down the slippery slope of loss of any legitimacy or consent to its domination of Lebanon, outside of its narrow Shi’ite core. This would leave it dangerously exposed in a changing Arab world.
It could, on the other hand, choose to sacrifice some or all of the accused men. But in this regard, it is worth recalling that the accused are not anonymous, outlying members of Hezbollah. Moustafa Badreddine is a brother-in-law of the slain military leader Imad Mughniyeh. And sacrificing movement members would in any case look like surrender and humiliation to a body that Hezbollah has specifically designated as an enemy.
Whichever path Hezbollah adopts, it is now confronting the contradiction at the heart of its project. The movement has sought to both serve a narrow Shi’ite, pro-Iranian and Syrian interest, and simultaneously to pose as the sword of all the Arabs and Muslims.
It will have the option in the months ahead of holding its domination of Lebanon by force, in the face of the indictments. But if it does so, the broader project for which it was brought into being will be very severely tarnished. Hezbollah’s hard power will yet more clearly be revealed as in the sole service of the Shi’ites and Iran—and directed against the Sunni regional majority.
The expected furious denunciations of the tribunal as an American- Zionist plot will not serve to disguise this reality.
LEBANESE INDICTMENTS PUT HEZBOLLAH
AND OBAMA ON THE SPOT
Jonathan S. Tobin
Contentions, June 30, 2011
Six years after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon finally handed down indictments in his murder. The results were hardly surprising. Two of the four persons mentioned in the charges are senior members of the Hezbollah terrorist movement that has become the most powerful force in Lebanese politics.
Hezbollah’s role in the assassination of Hariri, a leader who was the leader of a movement to oust the Syrian forces that had occupied his country for over a generation, was not much of a secret. Ironically, by killing Hariri, the Syrians and Hezbollah overplayed their hand and wound up helping to mobilize a broad cross-section of Lebanese against them. What followed was the 2005 Cedar Revolution in which Syria was forced out of Lebanon, and the country had a brief moment when it actually looked like it was about to emerge as an independent democracy. But it didn’t last, and today Hezbollah, operating with the support of both Syria and Iran, dominates the country in a manner unimaginable even six years ago.
The question now is whether these indictments can, like the original murder, alter the balance of power in Lebanon. Hezbollah will do its best to ignore the indictments and to squelch any attempt by the national government to arrest Hariri’s murderers and live up to its international commitments to abide by the Tribunal’s rulings.
If they do not, and the indicted persons are not brought to justice, it will be up to the international community not to let the Hezbollah-dominated government get away with it. The West stood by helplessly as Hezbollah plunged Lebanon into a needless war with Israel in 2006. They did the same as the terror group was re-armed by Iran and then sent its militia into the streets to ensure that no government that stood against it would rule in Beirut. If Hezbollah is allowed to literally get away with murder this time, it will be a signal the West is still too afraid of these terrorists and their Iranian and Syrian allies to stand up for justice.
The stakes involved in this standoff are much bigger than just whether Lebanon remains in thrall to terrorists. In much the same way Washington has passed up the opportunity to take action about the Assad regime’s bloody attempts to squelch dissent in Syria, the Obama administration may think it is too preoccupied with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the Libyan intervention to do anything about Lebanon. But if Obama fails to support the rule of law against Hezbollah, American prestige and influence in the Middle East will be further diminished.
