Lebanon’s premier, under intense political flak over a car bombing that killed a senior security official, said yesterday he would stay on after the President said it would be in the national interest.
A dangerous sign that there are those who continue to seek to undermine Lebanon’s stability- Clinton
Prime Minister Najib Mikati spoke after an urgent Cabinet meeting discussed the Friday bombing in Beirut that killed at least three people, wounded scores and has been blamed on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In Damascus, meanwhile, peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi pressed Syria for a truce to break the cycle of bloodshed there. But even as he began talks with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, fighting raged on northern battlefields, where regime jets resumed bombarding the key town of Maaret al-Numan that rebels captured on October 9.
Lebanese opposition figures had demanded that Mikati and his Government step down after the blast, which killed Internal Security Forces (ISF) intelligence chief General Wissam al-Hassan, a prominent anti-Assad figure.
“I assured the President of the Republic (Michel Sleiman) that I was not attached to the post as head of the Government,” Mikati told a news conference. “He asked that I stay in place because it is not a personal issue but one of the national interest.”
An official in Sleiman’s office said Mikati “had not resigned but had expressed to the President his intention to do so. The decision was suspended pending the meeting of the National Dialogue”, scheduled for November 12, but which could be brought forward by the President, the official added.
Amid scattered protests around the country, yesterday was declared a day of mourning for Hassan, 47, who was killed in his home district of Ashrafieh, an upmarket, mainly Christian area.
Hassan, who investigated the assassination seven years ago of former premier Rafiq Hariri in a car bombing also blamed on Syria, will be buried near Hariri’s mausoleum in central Beirut today.
The anti-Syrian Opposition, led by Hariri’s son Saad, called for a massive turnout for the funeral after prayers at the Al-Amine Mosque in central Beirut.
Friday’s attack drew condemnation from abroad, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling it a “dangerous sign that there are those who continue to seek to undermine Lebanon’s stability”.
Protesters, some burning tyres, blocked roads in Beirut, Sidon in the south, Tripoli in the north and the Bekaa Valley in the east.
In Tripoli overnight, firefights erupted after the office of pro-Hizbollah Sunni party Tawhid came under rocket fire and a Sunni sheikh and party member was killed in crossfire, a security official said. The bombing’s final death toll is still unclear.
On Friday, official figures put it at eight, but the ISF and the Red Cross lowered the figure to three yesterday. The ISF said 80 people were wounded, and the Red Cross, 110.
The site, a mass of rubble and twisted metal, remained cordoned off as investigators sifted for clues.
The Cabinet went into emergency session mid-morning to discuss the fallout from the bombing, after key opposition groups called on the government to quit.
Hassan, 47, was close to Saad Hariri, himself a former premier who leads the major Opposition March 14 coalition. After Friday’s bombing, Syria condemned what it called a “terrorist, cowardly” attack. But both Hariri and influential Druze leader Walid Jumblatt accused Assad of being behind it.