Lahoud vows to end outbreak of violence

A day after a bombing injured five people in Beirut, President Emile Lahoud pledged to do his utmost to end the spate of violence that has gripped Lebanon since last month’s assassination of former premier Rafik Hairiri.

Lahoud said that unity among the Lebanese will save the country.

His comments came after he attended an Easter Mass in which Maronite Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir urged the president to work to rescue the country.

On Saturday night, a bomb blast at an industrial estate in the mainly Christian north-eastern suburb of Bouchrieh injured five people and heavily damaged six buildings.

It was the third such attack in eight days.

The opposition has accused Syria of being behind the explosions.

The attack raised tensions another notch in Lebanon, which has been gripped by political turmoil since the February 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hairiri, which opposition groups blame on long-time mentor Syria and pro-Damascus Lebanese authorities.

Both vehemently deny such claims.

Several dozen opposition supporters tried to reach the damaged buildings but were forced back by soldiers guarding the area. After an argument, two were allowed to enter one building, where they unfurled a Lebanese flag.

Sfeir decried the latest violence in his Mass address.

“These incidents appear to be strongly pressuring everyone and are putting them (people) at a crossroad which is either independence, sovereignty and freedom – and this is what most of the Lebanese want – or insecurity, unrest and trouble – and this is what some who don’t want the good for Lebanon are warning about,” Sfeir said.

Lahoud, a Maronite, vowed that he would not let security get out of control.

“We will do all we can. We should all be united because this is how we can save the country,” he said.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Sfeir and Lahoud met before the Mass and shared identical points of view on forming a new government that will continue the investigation into Hariri’s killing and prepare for parliamentary elections, scheduled to begin next month.

The motive behind the latest bombings were not immediately clear. Lebanese opposition leaders have blamed Syrian security agents and pro-Damascus Lebanese authorities who want to prove Lebanon was unable to control its own security in the midst of a Syrian troop withdrawal.

Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt was among several people who blamed Syria for Saturday’s bomb blast.

Each attack since the first on March 19 has targeted Christian, anti-Syrian strongholds, raising fears of the return of the sectarian violence that plagued Lebanon during the 1975-90 civil war.

Jumblatt said he expected more car bombs in the coming days and in the run-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for May.

Calls for an end to Syrian interference in Lebanon reached fever pitch following Hariri’s killing, with Lebanese staging mass protests and the US and United Nations demanding Damascus withdraw its forces in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1559 passed in September.

About 1,000 of the 10,000 Syrian soldiers remaining in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley started heading home in recent days, a Lebanese military official said.

The redeployments follow the return to Syria of 4,000 soldiers in the first phase of the troop withdrawal that was completed on March 17.

Earlier this week, a UN report into Hariri’s killing criticised the Syrian and Lebanese governments and recommended an international investigation into Hariri’s murder. It added that such a probe would be difficult while Lebanon’s security chiefs are in place.

The Lebanese government criticised the report, and in Damascus today, the state-owned Syria Times described it as “purely political and not judicial”.

It added that the report “seems to be void of any facts related to the technical data which may help uncover the doers of that heinous criminal act”.

“The report is actually an integral part of the hostile campaign that aims to destroy the national unity in Lebanon and its strong historical relations with Syria,” the newspaper said.

Syrian soldiers have been based in Lebanon since 1976, a year after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war started.

The Syrians arrived ostensibly to provide a stabilising force in the war-torn country, but following the end of hostilities they remained and became its pseudo rulers, controlling all important political and security issues in Lebanon.