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Assassination analysis: Lebanon on edge of civil war

Like the last war -- a fratricidal bloodbath that raged from 1975 to 1990 -- it is likely to be a conflict nurtured by foreign powers using local proxies. On one side are Syria and Iran, who back the Shia militia Hezbollah. On the other are Saudi Arabia, other Arab regimes and the United States, which back a Lebanese government dominated by a coalition of Sunni, Christian and Druze parties.

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Middle East Correspondent

8:27 PM EST, November 21, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon - With the assassination of a prominent Christian politician Tuesday, Lebanon is on the edge of another civil war.

Like the last war -- a fratricidal bloodbath that raged from 1975 to 1990 -- it is likely to be a conflict nurtured by foreign powers using local proxies. On one side are Syria and Iran, who back the Shia militia Hezbollah. On the other are Saudi Arabia, other Arab regimes and the United States, which back a Lebanese government dominated by a coalition of Sunni, Christian and Druze parties.

One major difference today is that most Lebanese factions do not have armed militias, except for Hezbollah. And the group's leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed that he would not use his weapons against fellow Lebanese. But even before the latest assassination, Nasrallah had been pushing Lebanon toward a new crisis, telling his followers to prepare for mass protests later this week to topple the U.S.-backed government.

The supporters of Pierre Gemayel, the industry minister and prominent Maronite Christian leader who was gunned down Tuesday, have been seething at Hezbollah since it instigated a 34-day war with Israel. After guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12, Israel launched its most intense attack since it invaded Lebanon in 1982. The offensive crippled the country's infrastructure, displaced 1 million people, cut off Lebanon from the world and killed more than 1,200 Lebanese -- the majority of them civilians. More than 155 Israelis were killed, 118 of them soldiers.

"I wish that Israel had killed Hassan Nasrallah," shouted Alexa Rahmi, 48, standing among hundreds who flocked last night to the hospital where Gemayel had been taken. "Nasrallah is an agent of the Syrians and Iranians."

Like much else in Lebanon, the political conflict playing out between Hezbollah and its opponents is steeped in a bloody history. The Phalange party founded by Gemayel's grandfather -- also named Pierre -- allied with Israel during the 1982 invasion. Many Shia are still suspicious of their Maronite neighbors and especially the Phalangists.

The Gemayels are one of Lebanon's leading political clans, and with Tuesday's killing they have lost five members to political assassinations. But past attacks on the family have led to brutal reprisals that may have changed the course of Lebanese history. In early 1975, a failed assassination attempt on the family's patriach led his son Bashir to slaughter a busload of Palestinian refugees. That incident sparked the 15-year civil war.

In 1982, after he was installed as Lebanon's president under Israeli pressure, Bashir Gemayel was killed in a huge car bombing. Enraged, his Phalangist militiamen stormed Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and -- under the protection of Israeli troops -- killed at least 800 unarmed civilians in what became one of the war's worst atrocities.

"The killing of Pierre Gemayel will cost them dearly," Edward Zumji, 37, an unemployed plumber, said last night outside the hospital. He blamed Syria and Hezbollah for the assassination and added ominously, "Nasrallah's turn is coming."

Nasrallah also has used incendiary rhetoric in recent days. On Sunday, he accused Prime Minister Fuad Saniora -- and his cabinet, which included Gemayel -- of being American puppets and threatened to unleash hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets of Beirut. Nasrallah said Saniora's only choices are to give Hezbollah and its allies veto power in the current cabinet, or to call new parliamentary elections.

Last week, six ministers -- including all five Shia representatives -- resigned from Saniora's government after talks to give Hezbollah and its allies more clout in the 24-member cabinet broke down.

"This is the government of Feltman and not the government of Fuad Saniora," Nasrallah said Sunday, referring to Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon. At that remark, the crowd broke into applause and chants of "Death to America."

It was yet another example of a Lebanese leader blaming the country's problem on a foreign power.