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Lebanon blast kills anti-Syria journalist

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

June 3, 2005

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Samir Kassir was not afraid -- not when the head of Lebanese state security threatened him, not when his passport was confiscated, not even when intelligence agents tailed him around the clock for months.

In the late 1990s, when hardly anyone dared to publicly criticize Syria's military and political domination over Lebanon, Kassir was a lone voice of dissent writing in the pages of An-Nahar newspaper. He continued, despite constant threats and intimidation.

"They failed to have me fired from my newspaper," he told Newsday last month. "They failed to keep me from writing."

Samir Kassir was silenced Thursday, killed by a remote-controlled bomb planted underneath his car.

The killing of Kassir, a columnist for An-Nahar, highlighted Lebanon's tenuous state since thousands of Syrian troops withdrew in April, after 29 years of Damascus meddling with its smaller neighbor. Lebanon is in the midst of monthlong parliamentary elections, the first balloting in decades held without the shadow of civil war or Syrian domination.

Kassir was the most prominent figure killed in Lebanon since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. That killing prompted international pressure and popular protests that led to the resignation of the Syrian-backed Lebanese prime minister and to the withdrawal of Syrian troops.

Opposition leaders quickly blamed Kassir's assassination on Syria and its allies in the Lebanese security services. Damascus denied any involvement, as it has in Hariri's killing.

"Samir Kassir was assassinated by the remnants of the security agencies that control the country," opposition leader Walid Jumblatt told Lebanese TV. He demanded the resignation of the Syrian-backed Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud.

"As long as the serpent's head is in Baabda, the assassinations will continue," Jumblatt said, referring to the presidential palace in the Beirut suburb of Baabda. If, as expected, the anti-Syrian opposition wins control of parliament when elections end on June 19, one of its main goals will be to oust Lahoud.

Lebanese officials vowed a full investigation into Kassir's killing and said they would seek help from a United Nations team that is probing Hariri's assassination. "Every time Lebanon takes a step forward, there are those who want to undermine and take it a step back," Prime Minister Najib Mikati told reporters.

Kassir, 45, also was a leader of the Democratic Left Movement, a small group that helped organize protests after Hariri's killing, and he taught political science at Beirut's Saint Joseph University. The soft-spoken, bearded Kassir often spent his nights at Beirut cafes with fellow writers.

Aside from being a fierce critic of Syria's actions in Lebanon, Kassir was a supporter of a nascent reform movement in Damascus. He met frequently with Syrian writers and intellectuals who are critical of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"Samir was a great defender of freedom in the Arab world," said Omar Amiralay, a Syrian filmmaker and friend of Kassir's.

In his final column, which appeared last week on An-Nahar's front page, Kassir criticized Assad's regime for arresting dissidents and refusing to make reforms. "The Baathist regime in Syria is behaving the way it behaved in Lebanon, making blunder after blunder," he wrote. "The Baathists have not learned to accept opposing views."

Throughout his career, Kassir challenged authority. In 2000, the director of Lebanon's state security service, Gen. Jamil al-Sayeed, threatened him for writing articles that criticized the agency's treatment of anti-Syrian activists. The following year, security agents confiscated Kassir's Lebanese passport when he returned from a trip abroad. Officials also interrogated his neighbors, tapped his phones and trailed him for months.

Kassir viewed his personal experience with what he called the "Lebanese security regime" as part of a larger struggle. "It shows that we can prevail, we can move along even if we have all these pressures," he said last month. "The most important thing is that writers and intellectuals are the ones who helped reclaim freedom of speech in Lebanon."