Druze chief urges security chiefs to quit

Reuters ^ | 3/26/05 | Lin Noueihed

[Valin]

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A leading Lebanese opposition figure has urged the country's Syrian-backed security chiefs to resign to make way for an international probe into the killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.

"It is not possible to carry out a just, serious, clear and transparent investigation if the heads of the agencies remain in their place," Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt told reporters on Saturday.

"We warned against a security state over and over."

A U.N. fact-finding team said in a report released on Thursday that Lebanon's own inquiry into Hariri's February 14 killing was seriously flawed and called for an international investigation, long a demand of the opposition that holds Damascus and the security services it backs responsible.

Hariri's assassination has plunged Lebanon into its biggest political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

Syria denies involvement in the assassination of Hariri in a huge bombing in Beirut, but the report said such an inquiry was unlikely to fulfil its mission satisfactorily if the Lebanese security chiefs stayed.

Lebanon's pro-Syrian authorities, put on the defensive by the findings that criticised their shortcomings in preventing and investigating the killing, have slammed the report.

But opposition figures say it bolsters their repeated calls for an international probe and for the security chiefs to go.

"Yesterday, they tried to defend themselves ... they tried to defend themselves to the last moment," Jumblatt said of Lebanon's justice, interior and foreign ministers. "Tomorrow, they will no doubt be brought to court, to investigation."

The U.N. Security Council, which last year passed a resolution demanding Syria pull its troops out of Lebanon, ordered the fact-finding mission last month to report on "the circumstances, causes and consequences of the assassination".

The United States and France, co-sponsors of the resolution, are expected to introduce a new resolution to the Security Council calling for an international inquiry, diplomats say.

STREET PROTESTS

The opposition has seized on mass street protests to force the pro-Syrian government to resign and Damascus to bow to international pressure to finally withdraw the forces it poured into the country early in the civil war.

Facing mounting pressure, Syria has pledged to withdraw its troops, intelligence agents and equipment from Lebanon.

It has already completed the first phase of a two-phase plan, pulling back to eastern Lebanon and withdrawing over a third of its 14,000 troops out altogether.

Syrian troops left four positions in the eastern Bekaa Valley overnight and crossed the border into Syria, witnesses said. They left five positions in the agricultural plain earlier in the week and continued to dismantle positions on Saturday.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he expects Syria to complete its withdrawal before Lebanese general elections due in May. A Lebanese-Syrian military committee is expected to meet in early April to set a timeline for full withdrawal.

Lebanese Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mrad warned on Friday that Lebanon's military and security forces were too small to take over from Syrian troops leaving the Bekaa and may not be capable of securing the area if Syrian forces leave quickly.

Syria's backers in Lebanon have long argued that their country could slip back into lawlessness without it, but Jumblatt blamed the pro-Syrian security forces for bombings that have rattled the Lebanese.

Two blasts have shaken Christian areas where opposition to Syria is strong in the past week.

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