Dr. Karim
El Mufti
University
Professor
Political
Scientist
It took longer than usual compared
with other political assassinations (given the high secrecy linked to security
related areas), but the information eventually came out, the head of the
Intelligence Branch of the Internal Security Forces (ISF), Brigadier Wissam El
Hassan, was targeted and terminated.
1. The political war and Syria
Minutes into the Ashrafieh blast and
14 March local figures were already trying to make political good fortune out
of the tragedy, raising the scenario of an alleged targeting of the Kataeb
House, or the 14 March General Secretariat office, or even how Syria the
terrorist “targeted the heart of a Lebanese Christian area”. The context changed
once the announcement broke of the direct plot against the ISF Brigadier, even
though the accused party remained the same: Syria had killed Al Hassan in “retaliation of the arrest of Michel Samaha”,
the close advisor of Bashar Al Assad ; he was targeted because of the “efforts made by the ISF to stop Syrian
infiltrations into Lebanon”.
Blaming directly the Syrian regime for
the terrorist blast, self-exiled Saad Hariri was, from day one, trying to use the
killing as a high horse to make a comeback onto the Lebanese political
landscape after a period of political numbness: “if I were prime minister, my actions would be to stand against Bachar
el Assad and say very clearly that anything that will come into Lebanon, if the
regime is trying to export its terrorists to Lebanon, we would definitely
refuse it”[1].
Other spokespersons from the 14
March coalition carried on with the interpretation that this attack was an
export of the Syrian conflict into the heart of the Lebanese capital. As
clearly put by Kataeb president and anti-Syrian figure, Amine El Gemayel, to
the LBC television :
“This regime, which is crumbling, is
trying to export its conflict to Lebanon”.
But this explanation falls short
when, at the same time, the same anti-Syrian coalition eagerly connected the
attack (due to “troubling similarities”)
with past attacks on anti-Syrian figures (Gebran Tueni or Antoine Ghanem for
instance), at a time when “Syria al Assad” was well up on its feet, way before
the civil war there.
Still, there is no doubt in the
extensiveness of the blow the anti-Syrian coalition 14 March has just received
with the decapitation of the head of a security service loyal to its agenda.
Along with other public administrations, like the Council for Reconstruction
and Development and Ogero within the Telecommunications Ministry, this ISF
branch represented little of what was left of the opposition’s influence within
State institutions, remotely led by Saad Hariri since he was removed from power
in January of last year. Given the sensitive and strategic nature of the
Information Branch within the ISF, needless to say how enduring the hit came to
the political leverage of the 14 March coalition.
2. The evidence war and the STL
Wissam Al Hassan was not only a top security
operative who made possible the dismantlement of pro-Israeli cells, or the
arrest of former Minister Michel Samaha last August for planning to carry out
terrorist attacks on Lebanese soil, he was most importantly in charge of the
Lebanese side of the investigation of Rafic Hariri’s assassination. Brigadier Al
Hassan was hence among the people the prosecutor at the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon (STL) could count on in order to build his case. In that, the
indictment against the four members of Hezbollah is based, in the prosecutor’s
own words, on “circumstantial evidence”[2]
related to a series of interconnected telecommunications cells that were operating
in preparation to the attack, and that were allegedly set up by the four
suspects yet to be arrested.
With the overturn of the political
equilibrium and the formation of the 8 March pro-Syrian government, which is
hostile to the STL work, the intelligence unit run by Brigadier Al Hassan had
the mission of keeping the cooperation with the STL’s prosecutor alive. It is
important to highlight that the ISF Information Branch is the unit that uncovered the
telecommunications cells’ matrix (with the support of another police martyr and
IT expert, Captain Wissam Eid, assassinated in January 2008), before linking it
to Hezbollah members, and then possibly leaking the information to Der Spiegel who suggested this
eventuality in May 2009, two years before the indictment was issued. Since
that time, a crucial target shift has taken place, passing from the suspicion
of an official Syrian involvement to a Lebanese (Hezbollah) involvement in the
assassination of Rafic Hariri.
As such, anti-Hezbollah formations
in Lebanon had high hopes in the work of the ISF intelligence branch as it was fuelling,
genuinely or not, the accusation party, despite the loss of control over the
government. Whether these pieces of evidence were authentic or not was never really
the primary concern of the 14 March coalition. Some opposition figures, like
Samir Geagea, chose to entirely endorse the views of the prosecutor as
to the involvement of Hezbollah suspects[3],
even before the pre-trial Judge had set a trial date, whereas Hezbollah officials regularly rejected the telecommunications related evidence considering it fabricated.
This evidence war, that will contribute to determine the fate and outcome of the coming trial, has put Brigadier Wissam El
Hassan at the centre of a vast intelligence (national, regional and international) confrontation, as he fell victim of
irreconcilable conflicting interests where the battles behind the scenes never pause.
3. The 14 March window of opportunity to regain political ground
For the opposition group, the killing of Al Hassan has hence taken away a strong Lebanese ally in the investigation team
that would have been keen on beefing up the accusation party against the four
Hezbollah suspects, especially with the trial date (in abstentia) approaching
and fixed to 25 March 2013. In the minds of 14 March figures, as the trial
would advance against Hezbollah members, the popularity of the party of God
would be shaken, and this during election year.
Until then, fearing another May 2008 violent showdown, 14 March leaders have decided to throw their internal wrath
against Nagib Mikati. The prime minister now faces a tough spot as the attack
happened on his watch while he is representing a pro-Syrian government, despite
ingenious manoeuvring to escape impossible contradictions during his mandate through
decisions that digressed from core 8 March interests. We can mention for
instance the funding of the Lebanese share of the STL, the spearheading of aid
towards the Syrian displaced usually considered as supporting the Free Syrian Army, or the
freezing of the wage increase, an important component of 8 March agenda, as a
gesture to the private sector. At the end of the line, Prime Minister Mikati
offered his resignation that has been, curious constitutional outcome,
“suspended”, as he is today threatened by experiencing the same political fate
as Omar Karame whose political carrier crashed back in April 2005 in close
circumstances.
Accumulating political and street
pressure against the present prime minister is a convenient way for 14 March to
be blaming a Sunni official for the death of another Sunni official, hence
hitting on Hezbollah’s hold over the government in an indirect fashion without
being accused of fuelling sectarianism, and eventually try and bring it down.
This short-term battle represents, for opposition figures, a small window
of opportunity to regain some political capital a few months before the 2013
elections, but at the cost of maintaining Lebanon in a state of tumult.
Beirut, 21 October 2012
[1] Saad Hariri interview to CNN, reported by The Daily Star, 20 October 2012,
available at http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Oct-20/192109-hariri-tells-cnn-hasan-killed-over-samaha-case.ashx#ixzz29owAYqFW
[3] Press conference of Samir Geagea in Meerab on 27
August 2011, cf. Geagea : L’acte d’accusation est basé sur suffisamment de
preuves, L’Orient-Le Jour, 28 August
2011.
