Rafiq Hariri's Assassination - Syrial Killer?
Tarek Cherkawi
Winds of change seem to shake Lebanon and Syria these days. Indeed the pro-Syrian Lebanese government resigned after waves of protests shook the capital Beirut, and the Syrian
regime was forced to be permanently on a defensive mode. In fact without warning Syria started an all out diplomatic
effort aimed to win the favours of Washington and Tel-Aviv with numerous gestures of goodwill. These gestures include
handing over important Iraqi Baathist figures to the Iraqi government, proposing borders joint patrols to the U.S.
forces in Iraq, and banning the Palestinian organization thought to be responsible for the suicide operation inside an
Israeli nightclub over the last weekend.
The question is what caused this political tsunami? It appears that the shock point was the assassination of former
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who was two times prime minister of Lebanon (1992-98 and 2000-04), but was also
since the early 1980s -through his Saudi connections- one of the 100 richest men in the world.
Rafiq Hariri appeared in the Lebanese political scene during the 1980s, when he acted as Saudi Arabia’s personal
emissary to the different protagonists of the civil war in Lebanon, and mediated frequently between Damascus and the
various political figures in Lebanon. After successfully negotiating the peace agreements that ended the Lebanese civil
war, he became in 1991 the prime minister of Lebanon.
After army commander Emile Lahoud was installed as president, Rafiq Hariri repeatedly disagreed with him on many
political issues. Since Lahood was the protégé of the Syrian regime, Hariri lost the favours of Damascus especially that
his preferred contacts within the Syrian regime were out of the power circles following the death of the former Syrian
dictator Hafed El-Assad. As such he resigned.
In 2004 Rafiq Hariri decided to switch to the Lebanese opposition, which benefited from this move as it received from
him not only a huge financial support, but got also through his international contacts (ranging for President Chirac to
the Sheiks of the Persian Gulf) a vast diplomatic and political support. The agenda of the Lebanese opposition consisted
mainly of demanding the departure of the Syrian troops and the cessation of any interference from the Syrian
intelligence into the Lebanese affairs. These demands were backed by the international community in the form of the
United Nations resolution 1559 passed last September, which demanded in strong words the withdrawal of the Syrian troops
and security forces from Lebanon. Confronted all of a sudden to this complex situation the Syrian regime felt it was
vital to deal with it as quickly as possible.
The Syrian reaction was swift and violent. In the fall of 2004, a car bomb almost killed the M.P. and former Minister
Marwan Hamade, another leader of the Lebanese opposition who voiced his support to the U.N. resolution. Marwan Hamade’s
party immediately pinpointed the Syrian services as being the culprits, and accused them of sending through this car
bomb a message of intimidation to the Lebanese opposition.
It is widely believed that Rafiq Hariri through his contacts with President Chirac participated in the success of the
U.N. resolution 1559; a stance that provoked even more the fury of the Syrian head of intelligence in Lebanon General
Roustom Ghazalé, who according to some Hariri’s close collaborators, visited Hariri at home and brandished his gun
warning him to choose between Syria and the U.N. Resolution 1559. Following the same sources General Ghazalé tried to
blackmail Hariri by disclosing the fact that the Syrian services caught him on tape while talking to a European
president and this proved he was a “traitor.”
On Feb. 14 a car bomb loaded with over 150 kg of explosives claimed Mr. Hariri's life as well as 13 others despite the
utmost protective measures deployed alongside Hariri’s movements. Definitely Rafiq Hariri was among the best protected
people on earth, and his convoy had the latest electronic technology to impede remote-controlled explosive devices. The
fact that this protection was useless implies that the perpetrators were very professional and very sophisticated. From
eyewitness reports of Robert Fisk and BBC reporters, Hariri’s death strongly suggests involvement by a major
intelligence agency. The geopolitics of the region makes that only three parties have the capabilities of such an
operation: The Syrian intelligence, The Mossad and the C.I.A.
It is true that the Mossad has also a history of such covert operations. For instance in May 2002, Palestinian military
leader Jibril was killed by a bomb blast that ripped through his car in Beirut. Earlier that year, Eli Hobeika, who was
responsible for the massacre of Palestinian refugees in 1982, and was about to testify against Sharon for war crimes in
Belgium, was also killed in a bomb blast. These assassinations clearly hold the marks of the Mossad. The C.I.A too
executed similar black-ops. A notorious example is the car bomb planted by CIA operatives on March 8, 1985 in southern
Beirut, killing eighty civilians and wounding two hundred. Yet Syria has the lion share of these acts, indeed Syria has
been suspected in a number of high-profile assassinations in Lebanon, including that of Kamal Jumblatt, the Druze
leader, in 1977, and of Bashir Gemayel, the newly elected president in 1982.
However it is the motive behind the assassination of Rafiq Hariri that suggests the role of Syria. Hariri was in good
terms with the American administration as his media empire was aligned over the American viewpoints especially vis-à-vis
the ‘war on terror’ and the Iraqi situation. Concerning Israel he was not what we can consider as a hardliner, and he
was not particularly known for irritating Israel or its allies in Lebanon. On the contrary by aligning himself with the
Lebanese opposition he was de facto marching hand in hand with the best allies of Washington and Israel in Lebanon, and
therefore he could only be disturbing Syria’s game in the region.
The faltering media cover-up of Hariri’s assassination also implies the involvement of the Syrian intelligence. By
pushing an unknown group called “Group for Advocacy and Jihad in the Levant” to claim responsibility, and then by
accusing a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon to be the mastermind of the operation, the traces of the Syrian intelligence
were no longer subtle. Also the denials of the Syrian officials on Al-Jazeera Satellite television were unconvincing for
most observers, since they all used the same vocabulary and rhetoric as if they agreed to lie in unison.
If in the future the Syrian involvement could be proved, History will consider the assassination of Hariri as Syria’s
worst move ever. The killing of this statesman has not only unified a majority of Lebanese against the Syrian presence
in Lebanon, but also provoked a worldwide outcry against this vile act and thus increased the isolation of Syria in the
international arena. At a time when Syria is confronted to an increasing American and Israeli psychological warfare, and
thus crucially needs the support of the world opinion, this was the last thing to do.
ENDS