Saad Hariri says Hizballah must leave Syria

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri called on Hizballah Saturday to withdraw from Syria, saying their involvement in the civil war next door has backfired into Lebanon.

 

Hariri returned earlier in the day to Lebanon from self-imposed exile to mark the 10th anniversary of his father's assassination, a slaying that sharply divided Lebanon.

 

Rafik Hariri was killed with 21 others in massive truck bomb on a Beirut seaside road on 14 February, 2005.

 

Withdraw from Syria. Stop dragging the fires from Syria to our country. - Saad Hariri

His son is a sharp critic of Hizballah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom he accused in his speech Saturday of "destroying Syria on the heads of Syrians”.

 

Hizballah has sent fighters to Syria to back Assad's forces against rebels trying to remove him from power. The armed intervention in Syria earned the Shia group the enmity of Syria's predominantly Sunni rebels. ]

 

"Withdraw from Syria. Stop dragging the fires from Syria to our country, at times from terrorism and at other times from the Golan and tomorrow from we don't know where," Hariri said referring to a wave of bombings that hit Lebanon over the past year, killing dozens.

 

Hariri's comments came as Syrian troops and Hizballah are on the offensive in an attempt to capture rebel-held areas on the edge of the Golan.

 

Last month, an Israeli helicopter attack destroyed a unit near the front line of the Golan Heights killing seven, including an Iranian general. Hizballah struck back from south Lebanon killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding seven.

UN tribunal

Hariri's father was Lebanon's most prominent Sunni politician. A United Nations-backed tribunal is trying in absentia five Hizballah members for the bombing.

 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a Saturday statement that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon showed that "impunity will not be tolerated". 

 

Hariri said the movement’s refusal to hand over the suspects is a main reason behind Sunni-Shia tensions in the country.

 

Saturday's visit marks Saad Hariri's second return to Lebanon after four years in self-imposed exile. Hariri visited Lebanon briefly in August. He left Lebanon in January 2011 after his government was brought down by Hezbollah and its allies.

 

Lebanese had been paying their respects Saturday to his father a decade after his assassination.

 

In downtown Beirut, political leaders and ordinary citizens gathered to lay flowers at Hariri's grave and several television stations carried rolling coverage of the day's events.

 

The assassination shook Lebanon and the wider region. It prompted massive anger at Syria, which had long been the power-broker in the country, with many people accusing Damascus of involvement.

 

The resulting outrage caused Syria to pull its forces out of Lebanon, ending a 30-year presence that began during the 1975-1990 civil war.

 

However, the initial optimism that surrounded Syria's departure dwindled in the face of renewed bomb attacks against anti-Syrian politicians, public figures and those investigating Hariri's assassination.

 

In a statement marking Saturday's anniversary, US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged Lebanon's fragile situation, and urged that a new president be elected.

 

Lebanon is witnessing a stalemate in parliament, which has failed repeatedly to elect a new president since Michel Sleiman's mandate expired last May.

 

"It's fair to say that the status quo is not the Lebanon that prime minister Hariri envisioned," Kerry said.

 

"Unless and until a president is chosen, the erosion of Lebanon's political institutions will only become more pronounced."

 

He said Washington, which was a key supporter of Hariri, would back Lebanon's government and support the tribunal prosecuting his murder.