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WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Monday offered a $10 million reward for information on a Hezbollah operative who was convicted last year in the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The State Department said the reward will be given to anyone who provides information preventing Salim Jamil Ayyash from planning or engaging in any attack against a U.S. citizen or American interests. Ayyash is a senior member of Hezbollah's Unit 121, an assassination squad that the department said reports to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

1. Ahmad Abu Adass In 2005, the last year of his life, Ahmad Abu Adass was 22 and still living with his parents in Beirut, Lebanon. He was kind and liked people, his friends later told investigators, but none of them thought he was very sophisticated. The best way to describe him was simple, one said. He was generous and a little naïve. He was very weak, physically. A Sunni Muslim of Palestinian descent, Adass had become interested in religion and now spent many hours at the Arab University Mosque near his home. It was there, after a prayer session,...

Blackwater involved in Bhutto and Hariri hits: former Pakistani army chief Tehran Times Political Desk TEHRAN - Pakistan’s former chief of army staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg (ret.), has said the U.S. private security company Blackwater was directly involved in the assassinations of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Blackwater later changed its name and is now known as Xe. General Beg recently told the Saudi Arabian daily Al Watan that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had given Blackwater the green light to carry out terrorist operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi,...

on Feb. 14, 2005, at 12:55 p.m., an explosion just in front of the St. Georges Hotel shook downtown Beirut. It destroyed a convoy of vehicles carrying Lebanon’s former and probably next prime minister, Rafik Hariri, killing him along with eight members of his entourage and 13 bystanders. Soon after the blast, an anonymous caller claiming to represent “Nusra and Jihad Group in Greater Syria,” a previously unheard-of organization, told a reporter at the Al Jazeera affiliate in Beirut that a videotape from the suicide bomber was hanging from a tree in Riad al Solh Square, just a few blocks...

THE HAGUE: Lebanon takes one step closer toward closing the chapter of political violence and unaccountability with the start of the trial at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon today. The STL will hear the prosecution’s case against four Hezbollah members accused of rigging a 2,500 kg truck bomb nine years ago that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others, plunging Lebanon into political turmoil and ending Syria’s formal tutelage over the country.The opening session will be attended by a delegation of the victims and their families, whose hopes hang on the outcome of the trial. Among them is...

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said the issue of Hezbollah's arms can only be resolved via the National Dialogue and without resorting to sectarian partisanship, in remarks published Saturday. Commenting on the Sidon sit-in demanding the demilitarization of the resistance party, Jumblatt told An-Nahar: "The defense strategy should be formulated in a stable atmosphere away from tensions and sectarian partisanship." "This issue [Hezbollah's arms] cannot be resolved by blocking roads and disrupting people's lives in Sidon, the south and other areas," he added. On Wednesday, Sheikh Ahmad Assir, a Sidon-based Islamist and critic of Hezbollah's arsenal, blocked the...

Former Lebanon Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of Rafik Hariri, lauded the indictments handed to Hezbollah officials by the UN-backed tribunal probing Hariri's 2005 assassination, calling it a "historic moment." The handover of the indictments to Lebanese prosecutor general Saeed Mirza was made during a meeting with three judges from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which has given Lebanon 30 days to respond. Saad Hariri issued a statement shortly after the indictment was handed to Mirza warning the new Hezbollah-led cabinet that it must abide by Lebanon's commitments toward the international tribunal.

Another grenade exploded Saturday in the Tripoli wheat market of Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood in the northern Lebanon city of Tripoli , according to local reports... This is the second such incident in the same district within 2 days. Nobody was reportedly injured, but some property was damaged. A grenade exploded outside a Sunni Muslim cemetery in the same impoverished district on Friday evening, without causing any casualties or damage. Some reports pointed to Hezbollah as being behind a terror campaign to assume power in Lebanon. Hezbollah reportedly is exerting pressure on the Tripoli MPs to support its candidate for the...

The UN tribunal set up to prosecute the assassins of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri says its prosecutor has filed the first indictment in the case, nearly five years after the deadly truck bombing. Details of suspects named and the charges against them have not been released. Tribunal registrar Herman van Hebel said in a statement Monday prosecutor Daniel Bellemare sent the indictments to Judge Daniel Fransen, who must decide whether to confirm or dismiss them or ask for more evidence. Lebanese news sources reported that the indictments focus on Hizbullah members that planned and executed the assassination. Iranian...

Lebanon's government collapsed Wednesday after Hezbollah and its allies resigned from the Cabinet in a dispute with Western-backed factions over upcoming indictments in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others is widely expected to name members of the Shiite militant group, which many fear could re-ignite sectarian violence that has erupted repeatedly in the tiny nation...The U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.A White House statement said Obama commended Hariri for his "steadfast leadership and efforts to reach peace, stability and consensus in Lebanon under...

e-mail this to a friend printable version » 11/16/2010 19:06LEBANONDespite attacks, Patriarch Sfeir renews his support for international tribunalTensions are rising in Lebanon over UN-backed special tribunal after rumours suggest some Hizbollah figures could be indicted in Hariri bombing. Hizbollah leader warns his movement will cut off the hands of anyone who tries to get at its members. Beirut (AsiaNews) – Tensions are still rising over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), an international court set up under the auspices of the United Nations to investigate and try the people accused of masterminding and carrying out a terrorist attack...

Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Sunday told Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri that Tehran was prepared to help the Lebanese army, state television's website reported. "We have stated on several occasions, and we say it again today, that we stand alongside the Lebanese army and are prepared to cooperate" with it, Vahidi said during a meeting with the visiting premier, the report said. In a symbolic move, Vahidi offered Hariri an Iranian-made sub-machine gun Tondar (Thunder), used in urban warfare. Iranian television showed pictures of the gilded weapon which was placed in a wooden box. Hariri for his part...

Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel, according to newly leaked U.S. diplomatic memos, which say the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments." According to one of the documents, a person whose name was not published "had seen missiles in the planes destined for Lebanon when delivering medical supplies to the plane." The plane was allegedly "half full" prior to the arrival of any medical supplies, according to the memo. Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war that killed 1,200 Lebanese and...

BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt called over the weekend for a ban on flights from Iran to Beirut's airport, accusing Hizbullah of flying in arms from the Islamic Republic. At a news conference on Saturday, the outspoken MP also called for the expulsion of Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Reza Shibani and the sacking of the head of security at the airport, General Ayman Shoucair, over his alleged links to Hizbullah During the press conference at his residence in Mukhtara, Jumblatt showed reporters what he said was an exchange of mail between Defense Minister Elias Murr and army intelligence...

LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands — A U.N. tribunal carried out a controlled explosion Tuesday at a French military base as part of its investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon said in a statement that the explosion at the Captieux military base in southwest France was watched by a team of international experts who will carry out forensic tests. The court said their results will form part of the investigation, but said Tuesday's blast was not intended to replicate the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 other people on Beirut's Mediterranean waterfront...

Syria is on the move and throwing its weight around in the Middle East and beyond. On Sunday, a Damascus court issued more than 30 arrest warrants against high-ranking Lebanese and international political and judicial officials in connection with alleged false testimony given in the United Nations-backed inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, killed in a 2005 car bomb attack at the Beirut seaside, along with 21 others. Among those named were German prosecutor Detrev Melis, who led the initial stages of the investigation, and his aide, Gerhard Lehmann; Lebanese police chief Ashraf Rifi; top...

A U.N. investigative body is expected to ignite tensions in the coming weeks when it releases its report on the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Sources familiar with the investigation tell Newsmax that the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon will accuse Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei of giving the order to murder Hariri, and will lay out evidence showing that the murder was committed by Iran's Quds force and their allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon. The order to murder Hariri was transmitted to Imad Mugniyeh, Hezbollah's military leader, by Quds force chief Qassem Suleymani, sources familiar with the...

It wasn't until late 2007 that the awkwardly titled UN International Independent Investigation Commission actually got around to some serious investigating. By then, nearly three years had passed since the spectacular public murder of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri. [....] Among other things, CBC News has learned that: Evidence gathered by Lebanese police and, much later, the UN, points overwhelmingly to the fact that the assassins were from Hezbollah, the militant Party of God that is largely sponsored by Syria and Iran. CBC News has obtained cellphone and other telecommunications evidence that is at the core of the case....

Examples of our 'fictitious' era - from Islamists to liberals Hezbollah: We (Hezbollah/Iran/Syria Axis of evil in the ME) did "not" murder Christian Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri, it's just that we don't "like" the UN investigating us... BBC News - Hezbollah's Nasrallah urges Hariri tribunal boycott Oct 28, 2010 ... Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah urges his countrymen to boycott the UN tribunal into the 2005 killing of former PM Rafik Hariri. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11648654 Iran: We are finally ready to "negotiate" over our "peaceful" nuclear program, By The Way: "Death to (big Satan) US, Wipe off Israel / Allah Akbar! we...

Nobody doubts, by now, that Syria had a very strong motive for murdering their most powerful and popular foe in Lebanon, Rafik Hariri. But the UN’s International Tribunal may have uncovered something very different… Germany’s SpiegelOnline now has this report: On February 14, 2005, Valentine’s Day, at 12:56 p.m., a massive bomb exploded in front of the Hotel St. Georges in Beirut, just as the motorcade of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri passed by. The explosives ripped a crater two meters deep into the street, and the blast destroyed the local branch of Britain’s HSBC Bank. Body parts were hurled...