Pro-Syrian group threatens to kill UN official

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT, Lebanon

A pro-Syrian group that purportedly killed a top Lebanese editor has threatened to kill the next head of the UN commission investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

An-Nahar newspaper said it had received a statement signed by "The Strugglers for the Unity and Freedom in al-Sham," the group that claimed to have killed the paper's general manager Gibran Tueni with a car bomb on Dec. 12. Al-Sham is the Arabic term for the historical region that encompassed Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories. (...)

The statement described Mehlis, a German prosecutor, as a "filthy infidel" who had politicized the investigation to implicate Syria. It warned Mehlis's successor, who has not been appointed, not to come to the same conclusions.

"We warn him of the dangers of politicizing (the investigation) and call on him to announce, according to what the commission has found, that Syria is innocent of the blood of Hariri," the statement said.

More:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1135696353358&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

In other words: we, a pro-Syrian group, killed Tueni in pretty much the same way as Hariri was killed, but don't you dare to blame Syria for the killing of Hariri!

This seems so incredibly stupid, if anyone has a rational explanation for this I would really like to know it. :crazy:

name's Bolton.

politician? The people behind this group ("The Strugglers for the Unity and Freedom in al-Sham") don't just issue idiotic statements, they actually kill people.

According to Joshua Landis, Tueni was one of Israel's "best allies in Lebanon".
Monday, December 12, 2005, Gebran Tueni is Murdered. Is Syria to Blame?
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/archives/2005_12_01_archive.htm

So any involvement of the CIA or Mossad doesn't make much sense (why would they kill their own allies?). At the same time, any involvement of the Syrian government doesn't make much sense either. In a couple of interviews he gave to CNN, French, Russian and Turkish TV, Bashar al-Asad always insisted on "Syria's innocence". Why would he want a "pro-Syrian" group to undercut that message by issuing statements that clearly incriminate Syria?

Threatening the new UN investigator also doesn't seem a reasonable way to start the relationship when you hope for "new rules for cooperation":

Syria wants new rules for cooperation on UN probe
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2009781

There are no easy answers. We can only hope that Serge Brammertz will prove to be more objective and less biased than Mehlis who knowingly relied on fake witnesses that had already been discredited by the CIA and Saudi intelligence.

Belgian Nominated to Lead Hariri Probe

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has nominated a Belgian prosecutor to lead the next stage of a probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, U.N. officials and diplomats said Wednesday.

Serge Brammertz, a deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, would replace Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor who concluded that high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials played a role in Hariri's Feb. 14 slaying in a car bombing that also killed 20 other people.

U.N. diplomats said Brammertz had accepted Annan's offer to take up the job and that the world body was waiting for the chief ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to write a letter formally releasing him. They spoke on condition of anonymity because his appointment had not been made public.

U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Annan had completed the selection process and would announce his choice on Jan. 11.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051228/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_hariri_probe_1