Who would want to kill Samir Geagea?

Dr. Samir Geagea is a man with a colorful past. Let’s leave it at that. Any more info on the man can be found on his Wikipedia page (a rather glowing biography).

The Lebanese Christian leader has been taking it easy in recent years, sticking to a narrative he espoused during the civil war and backed up with military action during the 1980s. Given the goings on in Syria, and given Lebanon’s (or at least this government’s) relationship with Damascus, Geagea has been striking a chord of anti-Assad opprobrium that has gone down predictably well with partisans and even generated some unexpected bonhomie with champions of wildly different ideologies who happen to have found, in Geagea, a mutual Bashar basher.

TIME interview and the ensuing storm

When the article dropped, myself and several colleagues were stunned. TIME magazine had gotten an interview with one of the four men accused by an international court of killing Rafik Hariri. This man was subject to an INTERPOL arrest warrant and, if we are to believe the Lebanese authorities, the focus of a nationwide manhunt.

What the anonymous suspect said was not exactly life changing. It didn’t need to be. The sensational point of the article was that the magazine had managed to get an interview in the first place. The shockwaves had began.

Gas canisters and games: Blast in south Beirut raises eyebrows

With all the riveting news spewing from Beirut dailies concerning a draft law on maritime borders and Lebanon’s decision to disassociate itself from a U.N. Security Council statement condemning ongoing protest crackdowns in Syria, you may have missed this.

Last week, there was a small and largely overlooked explosion in south Beirut which, at least in south Beirut, set some chins wagging. Hezbollah – the group that controls large pockets of the southern suburbs, or dahiyeh as the area is loosely referred to, was quick to point out that the blast was nothing more sinister than an exploding gas canister. Sure, one person was injured, the party said, but that’s to be expected in a country where virtually nothing is done to monitor fuel safety. Right?

Documentary delay raises more than eyebrows

If, like me, you take more than a passing interest in the security situation in Beirut, you might have set aside some time this evening. For that’s when BBC World documentary series, “Murder in Beirut”, was due to be screened. It was going to deliver shocking truths regarding Hariri’s assassination.

More than that, though, it was going to tell us what a lot here already know – or think they know: Hizbullah killed the premier. At least it was, if we believe Al-Akhbar’s front page on Monday. The decision to shelve the production, given Lebanon is currently at any time 60 seconds from disaster, has raised eyebrows along with anticipation to see the finished product.

“Murder in Beirut” was officially withheld in order for the World News channel to ensure it complied with their stringent editorial standards; a spokesperson for the BBC told me the film would definitely be shown, just, you know, not yet. But as Sharif Nashashibi of Arab Media Watch pointed out, why did it take producers and BBC executives until six days before broadcast to realise there may have been some discrepancies? One’s thoughts can’t help but drift towards comments made by Hizbullah and their Christian political allies the FPM, in recent days, warning of all-out carnage if Hizbullah is implicated in the 2005 bombing.

Will the STL stay the course?

Politicians do it, former generals love to do it. Now even patients at a Beirut gynaecology center are doing it: attacking the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).

The incident today at a clinic in south Beirut – wire copy won’t print those two words without first saying ”the Hizbullah stronghold of” – demonstrates one of the first incidents of popular uprising against STL investigators, even if several occurences and threats of attacks prompted former investigation heads to seek refuge in the quieter climbs of Mount Lebanon. 

The beleaguered court has been beset with a string of high-profile resignations and accusations of politicization since its inception and popular support for the probe into the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is it an all-time low ebb.