Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Fisk sull'omicidio Hariri

THE MYSTERY OF MR LEBANON'S MURDER
Robert Fisk
17 March 2005
The Independent
After the assassination of Rafik Hariri, his vehicles were taken from
the scene on the orders of a former aide. And now, reports Robert Fisk,
many believe the missing cars may hold the key to the killing
NOW HERE"S a strange story from Beirut. Strange, because it is one of
fear and suspicion about Rafik Hariri"s murder on 14 February; stranger
still because - although almost everyone in Beirut knows the story
-much of it has not been published in Lebanon.
It involves a man called Ali Salah Haj and Hariri himself - and the
mysterious decision to move the most vital evidence of his murder from
the scene of the crime. Some say it is all a mistake, the result of
inexperience or ignorance. Others believe it holds the key to how the
former billionaire prime minister was murdered in a bombing that cost
the lives of 18 other innocents.
It all begins in the late 1990s when Hariri was prime minister. He
lived in a palace of pre-stressed concrete in the Beirut suburb of
Qoreitem and travelled everywhere with a government-supplied team of
escorts from Lebanon"s Internal Security Force.
Of the 40 men regularly on his team, Hariri regularly drove with one of
its senior officers, a man he liked, the heavily mustachioed Ali Haj.
"Things were quite normal," one of Hariri"s closest associates now
says, "until Sheikh Rafik found that the Syrians seemed to know
everything he was saying in his car. People thought he must be bugged
or that there was a tap on his phone. And after a while, he decided
that Ali Haj might be telling the Syrians what he was saying."
In a land such as Lebanon - where everyone listens to everyone else
(Hariri had his own security informants) - that had to be investigated.
"So he told Ali Haj something very specific that the Syrians wouldn"t
like," the family associate says. "And, within minutes of meeting a
Syrian official that day, the very same matter was raised with him.
That day, Sheikh Rafik asked another security man to ride with him. Ali
Haj was relegated to another car."
Within a short time, Ali Haj was reassigned - to a Lebanese
intelligence post in the Bekaa valley where he dealt regularly with
Brigadier General Rustum Ghazale, the head of Syrian military
intelligence in Lebanon.
Now we flash forward to 14 February 2005. Hariri"s armoured motorcade,
struck by a bomb of around 600kg, lies blazing in the narrow road
beside the St George Hotel on the Beirut Corniche. The vehicles, pitted
with shrapnel holes, perhaps bearing traces of the explosives, formed a
pattern which showed how the bomb scattered the cars - as well as the
order in which the convoy was travelling.
But within hours - although every other burning car was left intact
beside the highway - Hariri"s vehicles had disappeared. The decision
was taken by the man who is now head of the Syrian-controlled Lebanese
Internal Security Force, a certain Brigadier General Ali Salah Haj.
He ordered that the wreckage should be removed from the scene of the
crime - and this, remember, was the location of the murder of the most
important figure in the history of independent Lebanon - and taken away
on trucks to the Lebanese Charles Helou army barracks. Where they
remain to this day.
Ali Haj was among the many thousands of mourners who later came to pay
their respects to the Hariri family. Witnesses later recorded he was
given a frosty reception. Ghenna Hariri, the young daughter of Hariri"s
sister Bahiya, a Lebanese MP in the southern city of Sidon, greeted him
with the words: "Your place is not here." When he offered his hand to
Hariri"s widow Nazek - who now wears her late husband"s wedding ring on
a chain round her neck - she touched her chest modestly rather than
take Ali Haj"s hand.
In a country where everyone believes in the "moamara" - the Plot - it
is essential not to point the finger. No one has yet discovered who set
off the bomb that killed Hariri. But there are a number of remarkable
elements about the Lebanese investigation.
The first is that, a month after Hariri"s murder, it has still given no
information about it. Furthermore, the bombing took place in a part of
Beirut - site of a recent Francophone conference, close to the
Phoenicia Hotel where many foreign dignitaries stay and within half a
mile of parliament - the most heavily guarded area of Lebanon.
For the killers to have avoided the attention of the ISF, the army, the
traffic cops and a host of other security organisations as they
prepared their bomb was a truly extraordinary achievement. And for
anyone to have ordered the removal of the principle evidence from the
scene of the crime was an even more unlikely denouement.
One of those working on the Lebanese security investigation has
admitted there have been "many mistakes made", suggesting Ali Haj"s
decision to move the Hariri convoy cars came about because of his
conflicting loyalties - he had been one of Hariri"s own bodyguards but
was now a senior security officer - rather than any desire to cover up
the evidence.
He also said the police are convinced the killer was a suicide bomber,
possibly an al-Qa"ida operative who targeted Hariri because of his
links with the Saudi royal family. Hariri held Saudi citizenship.
Hariri"s supporters are increasingly convinced the bomb was hidden
under the roadway, down a drain or a telephone cable duct.
It"s easy to see how each theory suits their respective creators. An
al-Qa"ida murder clears the Lebanese and Syrian security authorities of
blame.
The bomb-under-the-road story suggests the Lebanese military security
institutions must have been breathtakingly careless in failing to
notice the planning and planting of the bomb.
The Lebanese and the Syrians believe in the al-Qa"ida plot - even they
are blaming the Israelis as a poor second - but the political
opposition is increasingly fingering Syria for, at the least,
incompetence, carelessness, even criminal negligence.
Hence Hariri"s supporters - even many thousands of those demanding the
truth about Hariri"s death - are demanding the resignation of seven
principal figures, all deeply in the pro-Syrian Lebanese justice or
intelligence services. They include General Ali Haj. The remainder are:
Adnan Adoum, the minister of justice and prosecutor general; Jamil
Sayed, the head of Lebanese General Security; Mustapha Hamdan, head of
the Lebanese Republican Guard; Raymond Azar, the head of
the"mukhabarat" intelligence service; Edgar Mansour, the head of
"national security", and Ghassan Tfayleh, the head of the security
service"s "listening department", the "Amn el-Tanassot".
The authorities have refused to accept the list, claiming all are
honourable men performing their duties with patriotism and devotion.
Needless to say, there"s an old Arab argument which runs in parallel
with any ordinary policeman"s first question: in whose interest was it
to commit the crime? Ask the Syrians, and they say they would never
commit such an act, not least because the calumny which the accusations
have since brought upon Damascus have caused such political
disadvantage to Syria"s young president, Bachar al-Assad - who has
himself condemned the killing as a "heinous crime."
Syria"s political friends in Lebanon - some of them Bachar"s
acquaintances - have been pointing out, accurately, that the American
neo-conservative project for the Middle East originally drawn up by
Messers Perle, Feith, Wurmser and others, called not only for the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein but for diverting of Syria"s attention "by
using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilise Syrian control of
Lebanon."
How better to destabilise Syria in Lebanon than by killing Hariri?
Those million Lebanese who demanded Syria"s withdrawal, the resignation
of the Lebanese president and the truth about Hariri"s murder on Monday
do not recognise themselves in this scenario. They also demanded to
know who killed ex-President Rene Mouawad, the Grand Mufti Khaled and
the Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt.
It is worth pointing out that the Christians among the demonstrators
did not call for the truth about the murder of prime minister Rashid
Karami and National Liberal leader Danny Chamoun - because wartime
Christian militiamen rather than the Syrians are widely regarded as
their murderers.
The imminent return from self-imposed French exile of the messianic ex-
General Michel Aoun - who led a hopeless "war of independence" against
the Syrians in 1989 which cost thousand of innocent lives - is a clear
sign that the opposition here could find themselves gravely
embarrassed.
Most, in fairness, do not personally blame President Bachar al-Assad of
Syria for Hariri"s murder. They were insulted by his speech in the
Syrian parliament last Saturday but are well aware that far more
ruthless men exist in Syria - and outside Syria"s borders - to whom
Hariri"s fate could be assigned, or even self-assigned.
Many opposition leaders, including Walid Jumblatt - it was his father
Kamal who was murdered - hope desperately Bachar was not involved. But
it remains the case the Lebanese security officers who were appointed
to guard Lebanon on Syria"s behalf have established a wretched
reputation.
Why, for example, were three more bodies discovered at the site of the
Hariri mass murder in the two weeks that followed the bombing?
Ali Haj could immediately take the vital evidence from the scene of the
crime - something which no police force in the world would do - on the
grounds that he needed to "protect" it. But how come his investigation
failed to spot three corpses at the scene?
When the Zahle MP and former Syrian ally, Mohsen Dalloul, announced
this week that the Lebanese authorities "knew" who had assassinated
Hariri - who was the unofficial leader of the Lebanese opposition to
Syria until his death - those same authorities were as silent as the
proverbial grave.
Maybe they are listening to the million Lebanese who demanded the
truth. Or maybe they are just following the usual trade of all security
services, silently listening to their telephone lines. I say this
because just three days ago, Ghassan Tfayleh, the head of the Lebanese
eavesdropping department, put a tap on my home telephone in Beirut.
Well, there"s only one response to that: call any time

 THE MYSTERY OF MR LEBANON'S MURDER
Articolo interessante ed informato. Quello che non mi trona proprio sono 
le conclusioni: tutto secondo Fisk sembra puntare ad una 
responsabilita', o almeno complicita', degli uomini della sicurezza 
libanese che rispondono a Damasco mappero' e' colpa dei neocon USA?? Mah.
Anche alla luce di questo articolo io continuo a propendere per 
l'ipotesi dei servi sciocchi e solerti che di fronte ad un accenno 
obliquo dei padroni siriani si sono lasciati prendere la mano (oppure 
hanno interpretato correttamente l'accenno). San Tommaso Beckett insegna.
Palmiro Pangloss
-- 
"But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera I'll 
kill you."
Clint Eastwood to Michael Moore
National Board of Review awards dinner at the Tavern on the Green, New 
York, NY 11.01.05

 Fisk
Robert Fisk, ovvero:
"Poi i giovani frantumarono i miei occhiali, cominciarono a colpire la 
mia faccia e la mia testa con delle pietre.... E pure allora, continuavo 
a capire. Non potevo biasimarli per quello che facevano.... Se fossi un 
rifugiato afgano a Kila Abdullah avrei fatto esattamente quello che 
facevano loro. Avrei aggredito Robert Fisk. O qualunque altro 
Occidentale avessi trovato."
Quel rincoglionito cosmico di Fisk ha credibilita' pari a zero.
-- 
lo Splenetico

 hanno interpretato correttamente l'accenno). San Tommaso Beckett insegna.
Mi sembra una tesi "eccessiva" dal punto di vista ockhamico, e nello stesso
tempo troppo "povera" dal punto di vista poliziesco: cosa sappiamo davvero
*di Hariri*? Shalom.
Namib

 Quel rincoglionito cosmico di Fisk ha credibilita' pari a zero.
E quello Splenetico? Donde trae la sua credibilità? Dalla sua (dello
Splenetico) propensione all'afasia?
Namib


Questo Splenetico ringrazia per l'interesse mostrato sull'origine della 
propria credibilita'.
Constata anche con piacere che Namib non ha nulla da eccepire sulla 
valutazione fatta dallo Splenetico riguardo alla credibilita' di Fisk.
-- 
lo Splenetico

 *di Hariri*? Shalom.
Sappiamo poco, vero. Per qul che ne sappiamo lo puo' aver fatto fuori un 
costrutture rivale escluso dalla ricostruzione di Beirut. Pero' questo 
costruttore ci sarebbe riuscito senza appoggi nella sciurezza libanese? 
E questi appoggi sarebbero passati inosservati ai supervisori siriani? 
Ne dubito molto.
Se interessa da un'occhiata alel foto satellitari del prima e del dopo 
attentato:
Before:
http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/qb/beirut_dec21_2003_dg.jpg
After:
http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/qb/beirut_feb15_2005_dg.jpg
Sullo stesso sito molte interessanti immagini legati agli eventi attuali.


 valutazione fatta dallo Splenetico riguardo alla credibilita' di Fisk.
Veramente, anche questo Namib ha trovato "interessante ed informato" l'art.
di Fisk; per contro, le 2 righine di quello Splenetico gli sono sembrate (a
questo Namib, non a quello Splenetico) assolutamente prive di senso, di
scopo e di interesse. Mero flatus vocis. Bye.
Questo Namib (da non confondersi con quello)