UN to accuse Syria of Hariri assassination

Ok, now this could get interesting!

It has been well known for sometime now that Syria was behind the assassination of Hariri because he wanted change in Lebanon.

And now the UN will lay blame on Syria for the killing.

So now what happens?

Will Lebanon fall back into civil war?

It seemed for the first time in decades that Lebanon had a bright future.

Will Syria re-occupy Lebanon?

Syria does not go to the bathroom without getting permission from Iran, so whats the next move?

So will the UN go after Syria using military force for the killing, or will the UN impose santions?

Or will the US strike a blow for Lebanon into Syria from Iraq ?

www.guardian.co.uk...


Middle East tension rises as UN prepares to accuse Syria of Hariri assassination

· Defector claims to have heard plot being discussed
· Investigator to interview senior figures in regime

Ewen MacAskill, Rory McCarthy in Beirut and Brian Whitaker
Friday September 23, 2005
The Guardian

UN investigators will next month directly implicate the Syrian government in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, potentially igniting a new Middle East crisis.

I'm guessing the UN will pass 5-10 resolutions, back them up with threats and follow them up with Aid. The UN is corrupt and losing it's authority in the world body day by day. They have yet to solve a single threat any country has posed in the last 20 years. Balkans - nothing, Africa - nothing, Iraq - nothing, Iran - so far nothing, North Korea - nothing. The list goes on and on. I wouldn't count on the UN for anything but lining their own pockets and passing resolutions that have no merrit.

If I'm not mistaken the only "proof" they have of Syria's involvement in this case is their lack of cooperation in the investigation, and of course the only country with a motive.

sp.

[edit on 9/26/2005 by rstrik]

Syria can orders its intelligence agents or militant organizations to target anti Syrian people, as we have seen in the news. it would give Syria an excuse to go back into Lebanon and tell the U.S. that pulling out was a bad idea and to f**k off and let Syria alone.

An U.N. investigation, led by veteran German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed 60,000 documents, identified several suspects and established numerous important leads in its first four months.

In a report ( Report of the International Independent Commission established pursuant to security council Resolution 1595 (2005) ), submitted to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on Thursday,

the Mehlis commission presented evidence the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Maj. Gen. Asef Shawkat, could have figured in the plot, setting up known militant Ahmed Abu Adass as a decoy by forcing him to tape a video claiming responsibility for the murder weeks before it took place.

Those names were edited out of the final document,

UNITED NATIONS -- The names of Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother and brother-in-law and other top Syrians were edited out of the final report of a U.N. investigation as helping to plot the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, U.N. diplomats said Friday.

Germany prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who led the U.N. probe, told a hastily called news conference that he decided to delete the names when he learned Thursday morning the report would be made public because the Syrians had only been identified by a witness interviewed by his investigators. [...]

source

sent in a Microsoft Word format that allowed a reader to see changes.



MideastWeb has obtained a copy of the working text of the Mehlis report on the assassination of Hariri, and has inserted all the substantive cuts that were made

The document names Maher Assad and others, and indicates the name of a Lebanese Bank suspected of money laundering:

Mehlis Report on the Hariri assassination: (Unexpurgated version) - Report of the International Independent Commission established pursuant to security council Resolution 1595 (2005)


[edit on 24-10-2005 by Riwka]

Clearly the United States is behind the UN action to censure Syria. It fact didn't Condi Rice have something to say about them and others. The ironic part is that we have "eliminated" many world leaders. Some of them who were popularly elected by their people. In fact aren"t we ramping up the rhetoric about Hugo Chavez of Venezuela now because he won't let us exploit his oil like we have in the past.

Blaming Syria for Hariri's death was inevitable, in fact it was probably planned that way from the outset.
Why would Syria's leaders commit political suicide by carrying out such an act, at a time when the US and Israel are ramping up the tough talk against them, including £regime change"? Propaganda for the masses perhaps

Here's an interesting snippet I came across at the weekend.

www.informationclearinghouse.info...

Another "curveball" type character maybe? If the case goes belly-up they can say they were all taken in by this guy

Originally posted by deltaboy
Syria can orders its intelligence agents or militant organizations to target anti Syrian people, as we have seen in the news. it would give Syria an excuse to go back into Lebanon and tell the U.S. that pulling out was a bad idea and to f**k off and let Syria alone.

According to some, Syria never totally left Lebanon in the first place. The troops marched out with much fanfare, but Syrian security and intelligence never turned in their room keys.

This may explain why the US is so "outraged" over the news of Syria's involvement in Hariri's death. Our outrage seems a bit too loud, IMO.

from rstrik
I'm guessing the UN will pass 5-10 resolutions, back them up with threats and follow them up with Aid.

Too funny, man!

[edit on 26-10-2005 by jsobecky]

Double post, sorry.

[edit on 26-10-2005 by jsobecky]

The U.N. Security Council voted 15 to 0 on Monday for a resolution demanding Syria cooperate fully with a U.N. probe into the death of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri or face possible "further action."

This is a resolution under Chapter VII (binding!)

Yedioth Ahronoth reports that the ANN network, owned by Rifaat Assad, the Syrian president's uncle and rival, who is in exile reported, Syrian army forces besieged Wednesday evening the offices of Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat, in Damascus.

In the meantime, there has been no confirmation or reference to the ANN network report by any other source.

Did anybody else here found something about this?

Syria today agreed to allow U.N. investigators to question five officials at the U.N. offices in Vienna in connection with the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri

"The Syrian leadership has agreed to his (Mehlis) compromise proposal on holding the interviews of the five Syrian persons at the U.N. headquarters in Vienna," Deputy Foreign Ministry Walid al-Moualem told a news conference.

Reuters

Syria first had rejected Chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis' request to interview the officials and Mehlis had set today, Nov. 25, as the final deadline for the Syrian government to hand over the 6 senior Syrian intelligence officers for interrogation as per UN resolution 1636.

The Syrian move was designed to avert a showdown between Damascus and the U.N. Security Council after Mehlis was close to giving up on Syrian cooperation over demands from Damascus for a legal deal before allowing the quizzing.

Originally posted by rstrik
I'm guessing the UN will pass 5-10 resolutions, back them up with threats and follow them up with Aid.

I guess peace isnt on your agenda then?
I guess the UN is currupt, useless and powerless..
I guess that we should disband it huh? Let the power go back to when the world was ruled by who had the biggest military and largest allies..

Guess WW1 and 2 where not enough huh?

Its ok...your country didnt get bombed....your country didnt lose over a million people....your country never had its cities firebombed.

Go ahead critise it....but it does not matter...you have no idea what the UN is really worth or what it really does..

Staunch anti-Syrian lawmaker and journalist Gebran Tueni was killed Monday when an explosion hit his convoy as it made its way through Beirut. At least four people were killed in the blast, security sources said.

Anti-Syrian lawmaker killed in Beirut explosion - Lebanese Druze MP Walid Jumblatt points finger at Syria

Asked by the London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat if he was firmly convinced that Syria was behind Hariri's killing, Mehlis replied, "Yes."

Asked whether he directly accusing the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, already under heavy international pressure to cooperate with the UN probe, Mehlis said, "Let's say the Syrian authorities." He declined to elaborate.

Mehlis also said he saw a link between this week's assassination of anti-Syrian journalist and lawmaker Gibran Tueni and a string of bombings that has rocked Lebanon since Hariri's assassination in February. ([url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/658645.htmlReuters[/url])

Also, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to prolong by six months the United Nations investigation of the assassination of Hariri, and it cited Syria for not providing the inquiry "full and unconditional cooperation."

The UN has asked Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to succeed German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis in the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Mehlis led a six-month UN inquiry that has implicated members of Syrian President Bashar Assad's inner circle in the Feb. 14 killing.

The Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar reported Wednesday that a pro-Syrian organization that claimed responsibility for killing the paper's editor, Gibran Tueni, issued a new threat against Mehlis's successor.

The group said Mehlis is lucky it has not killed him.