Samir Geagea’s Party Started Thursday’s Bloody Shooting – Lebanese Interior Ministry

By Staff, Agencies

A top-level meeting at Lebanon’s Interior Ministry concluded that the far-right Lebanese Forces [LF] political party, led by Samir Geagea, had started the Thursday shooting in Beirut that killed seven people on Thursday.

All details of the bloody event were discussed in a meeting of the Central Security Council at Lebanon’s Interior Ministry, in the presence of the leaders of the security services, who unanimously agreed that members of the LF had started the shooting.

Seven people were martyred and 60 others injured in the attack, during which Hezbollah and Amal Movement supporters were shot from rooftops, while they were gathering to peacefully protest against a judge investigating last year’s Beirut Port explosion as they accused him of bias.

After the incident, the Lebanese Army issued a statement, saying “the protesters, as they headed to the Adliyeh area, were fired upon in the Tayyouneh-Badaro area.”

However, observers noted contradictions between the army statement and a second statement that was issued after a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.

The second army statement claimed that when protesters headed to the Al-Adliya area for their sit-in, there was a dispute and an “exchange of fire” took place, which led to the killing of a number of citizens and the injury of others.

In a statement, Hezbollah and Amal said armed groups affiliated with Geagea's Lebanese Forces party fired at the protesters from rooftops, aiming at their heads in an attempt to drag Lebanon into a new sectarian strife.

According to The Cradle, one of the officers attending the Interior Ministry meeting produced details about snipers spread out across the roofs of surrounding buildings in advance of events, who then opened fire on protesters as they passed from the Tayyouneh area.

Armed LF assailants had already been deployed in the internal streets of the adjacent Ain al-Remmaneh neighborhood since early morning to prepare for the confrontation, a security source told the investigative media platform.

The unnamed source revealed that as the protesters were passing on the Old Sidon road, there were already provocations by a gathering of forces in Zaroub al-Farr School, who threw stones at the demonstrators even before the LF assailants attacked them.

Military sources also said that no one was arrested after the army stormed a number of buildings from which the shooting was directed.

Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has accused Judge Tarek Bitar, who is investigating the Beirut port explosion, of “politically targeting” officials in his investigation.

Bitar has for months tried to question former Prime Minister Hasan Diab as well as ex-ministers Ali Hasan Khalil, Ghazi Zaiter, Nouhad Machnouk and Youssef Finianos. Khalil and Zaiter belong to the Amal Movement, a close Hezbollah ally.

The judge has also sought to summon General Security chief Major General Abbas Ibrahim and State Security head, Major General Tony Saliba. However, the Interior Ministry and Higher Defense Council did not grant him permission to do so.