No to the Extradition of British Muslims to the US!
Oppose the Attempts to Legalise the Unjustifiable!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

No to the Extradition of British Muslims to the US!
Oppose the Attempts to Legalise the Unjustifiable!

Extradition Decision Could Legitimise Torture of British Citizens
Britain and Other EU Countries’ Unaccountable Complicity in US Renditions Programme
Extraordinary Rendition Flights and CIA Secret Prisons Revealed by European Parliament

Lebanon:
Mass Demonstrations against US-Backed Lebanese Government
Reinforced UNIFIL: A Stability Factor or a Source of Political Tension?
What Is Hezbollah's Future?
Without Evidence or Logic Bush Administration and US Media Blame Syria for Gemayel Assassination

On November 30, the High Court in London sanctioned the extradition of two British Muslims to the US despite that country’s gross violation of national and international law and committing crimes in its "war on terror". The two Muslims lost separate appeals against being sent to the US to face terrorist charges under Britain’s recent extradition treaty, which require no prima facie evidence to justify extradition.

At the High Court, Lord Justice Laws said that the legal team representing Haroon Aswat and Babar Ahmad had not met the required standard of proof that the US might violate undertakings given to the Britain that the men would be fairly treated under US custody. The lawyer for the two men, Edward Fitzgerald, argued if extradited the two men faced the prospect of having their basic human rights violated through indefinite detention at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, rendition to a third country for questioning, or being tried and sentenced by a military tribunal as enemy combatants.

The British government has come under widespread pressure over the non-reciprocal nature of the unjust extradition treaty, which has yet to be ratified by the US congress after more than two years.

The entire set of immoral arrangements has the sole aim of legalising what cannot be justified. The ruling of the High Court flies in the face of worldwide knowledge of and opposition to US practices of torture at Guantanamo Bay, rendition to torture, and military tribunals that violate or deny basic legal rights. The decision makes it clear that the aim of the so-called "war on terror" is to approve and enable the US to continue flagrantly to violate international law for self-serving aims and has nothing to do with catching "terrorists".

WDIE denounces the abdication of authority and responsibility by the judicial system to uphold international law and the rights of citizens and residents of this country, together with its undermining of the same internationally. We call on all democratic forces to condemn this judgment on extradition and to oppose all attempts to justify the US’s acting with impunity with the connivance and collaboration of the British government.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) on Thursday, November 30, expressed deep concern about the ramifications of the High Court decision to extradite British citizens Babar Ahmad and Harun Rashid Aswat to the US.

The decision highlights the manifest injustice of the Extradition Treaty whereby innocent British citizens can be extradited to the US on the flimsiest of evidence. To date, not a shred of evidence has been produced against these men which would warrant charges being brought against them in the UK, the IHRC said in a press release.

In light of claims of the highest level of intelligence sharing, the IHRC finds it puzzling why evidence against the men, if it does exist, has not been passed on to British authorities in order to charge them in Britain.

IHRC Chair Massoud Shadjareh stated: "Since Britain has some of the comprehensive terrorism laws in the world, if there is any evidence against these men, they should be charged and tried in a British court. Without any evidence being produced, innocent British citizens will be subjected to an American criminal justice system which has done away with due process and legitimised torture in its ‘war on terror’."

The preliminary report by the Rapporteur of the European Parliament's Temporary Committee investigating CIA activity in Europe, Claudio Fava, confirmed on November 28 the complicity by European countries, including Britain, in facilitating CIA renditions to occur in Europe.

The draft report found national security services in various countries were not being held accountable for their role in renditions. The report also highlighted the failure of EU institutions and member states, including Britain, to fully co-operate with the investigation as well as their failure to carry out independent investigations into the role played by their authorities in the US programme of renditions.

Commenting on the report, Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock said: "This report is a damning indictment of the UK's complicity in CIA renditions and its failure to fully co-operate with the European Parliaments' investigation. It is vitally important that the UK government stops ignoring this issue and allows a full, independent investigation into all aspects of renditions involving the UK. This should include an investigation into how the UK residents Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna came to be 'rendered' from Gambia to Guantanamo Bay with the apparent knowledge of UK officials."

ABC News carried a report on November 28 that the CIA flew 1,245 secret flights into European airspace, according to a European Parliament draft report obtained by them. The report is the result of a year-long investigation into secret CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights and prisons in Europe.

No European country has officially acknowledged being part of the programme. But citing records from an informal meeting of European and NATO foreign ministers last December that included US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Parliament's draft report concludes "member states had knowledge of the programme of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons".

The report detailed the involvement of many European countries in the CIA's illegal programme. It listed the number of CIA flights, or stopovers, it found in a number of countries:

Germany: 336 stopovers.
United Kingdom: 170 stopovers.
Ireland: 147 stopovers.
Portugal: 91 stopovers.
Spain: 68 stopovers.
Greece: 64 stopovers
Cyprus: 57 stopovers.
Italy: 46 stopovers.
Romania: 21 stopovers.
Poland: 11 stopovers.

The Full European Parliament Draft Report can be accessed at:
http://abcnews.go.com/images/International/european_report2_clean.pdf

By Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, December 1, 2006

The Western media, which often downplays the size of public rallies and anti-war demonstrations, confirms that "hundreds of thousands" of people from all sectors of Lebanese society gathered in Beirut in anti-government demonstrations, demanding the resignation of the US-Israeli supported government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

The Beirut government is taking orders directly from the US embassy. The Siniora government has allowed the deployment of NATO forces on Lebanese territory under the pretext of a UN sponsored peace-keeping operation. NATO warships under German command are stationed off the country's Eastern Mediterranean coastline. NATO has a military cooperation agreement with Israel.

The banners read "Down with Feltman's government", in reference to US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman:

"We want a national unity government",  "We want a clean government".[1]

Police sources estimated the crowd at 800,000 people, almost half the population of the Beirut metropolitan area. Organisers said it was much larger.[2]

The significance of the rally has been casually dismissed. According to the BBC, it was organised by Hezbollah and its so-called "pro-Syrian allies".

The rally had little to do with Syria. It demanded the resignation of an illegal government, which supports the interests of US and Israel.

Among the allegedly "pro-Syrian" protagonists of these mass demonstrations was Michel Aoun, a staunch opponent of Damascus who led the insurrection against Syrian military presence in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

All sectors of Lebanese society are demanding the resignation of the government. A majority of the Christian Maronite community is firmly behind the protest movement: "I call on the prime minister and his ministers to resign" said Michel Aoun. "I wish that the prime minister and his ministers were among us today, not hiding behind barbed wire and army armoured carriers. He who has his people behind him does not need barbed wire."

Emile Lahoud, the country's president, has also confirmed in that the Siniora government has violated the country's constitution: "This government is no longer legal because it is not representative of all the country's religions," he said, following the resignation of five cabinet ministers from Hezbollah, Amal as well as one Christian loyal to President Emile Lahoud.

"Hezbollah's deputy general security, Sheik Naim Kassim, made it clear the fight is against 'American tutelage' and said the protest action will continue until the government falls.

"'We will not let you sell Lebanon, we will protect the constitution and people of Lebanon,' Kassim said on television Friday, addressing Saniora."[3]

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush warned that "Iran and Syria were trying to destabilise Lebanon". US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton described the anti-government demonstrations as "part of the Iran-Syria inspired coup d'etat".

Christians, Shiites and Sunni have joined hands.

Washington's objective is to transform Lebanon into a US protectorate. The Lebanese people are demanding the resignation of a government which is acting on behalf of the US and the Israeli invaders of their country. They are demanding the formation of a national unity government which will defend the Lebanese homeland against US-Israeli aggression.

Notes

1. Quoted in The Hindu, 1 December 2006
2. Associated Press.
3. Daily Star, 1 December 2006.

By Asaad al-Khouri, Alarab Online, November 27, 2006

Some political circles have received with much interest the first announcement from the international emergency forces in the South of Lebanon. After a few hours of raising the Lebanese flag on the Blue Line in Labouna Town their mission in the South had gone beyond mere self-defence to ensuring that the zone is not used for military activities. They stressed that they would use force in carrying out that mission.

Lebanese official sources quickly responded to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) statement by warning that some rules relating to the use of arms by the UNFIL, Israel or even Lebanon has seemingly become subject to interpretation and reckoning. For instance, Israel may consider a peaceful popular manifestation in Lebanon near the border line a security threat to it, and consequently demand the UNIFIL to deal with it harshly. So would the latter comply? And if Israel fires at Lebanese citizens will the UNIFIL retaliate as a commitment to Resolution 1701? Will the Lebanese Army be compelled to obey what Israel demands via the UNIFIL?

It has been confirmed, however, that there is only one thing clearly stated in Resolution 1701: UNIFIL has to prevent any violation of the Blue Line on both sides. Furthermore, capitals concerned with Resolution 1701 are holding debates about the possibility of establishing a UNIFIL air force that will be assigned the task of controlling the Lebanese space borders in parallel with the navy and land forces. These debates are faced with a US-backed Israeli veto despite the warnings that the Israeli space violations would obliterate the international resolution.

During the 'victory festival,' Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's Secretary General, sent the international forces – which he called 'reinforced UNIFIL' – a message where he welcomed them but on condition that they would be confined to a clear mission consisting of backing up the Lebanese Army, not disarming the resistance, spying on Hezbollah or working on re-establishing the balance of power in Lebanon and interfering with its affairs.

A few days before the victory festival, the Lebanese Head of Government, Fued Siniora, had met journalists and informed them that that he was making every effort to deal with things with wisdom and responsibility "in order not to reach a situation where international forces come to impose international resolutions in Lebanon". Siniora had not excluded the possibility of issuing a new UN resolution based on Chapter 7, clarifying that the mission of these forces is not to stay in barracks but to conduct patrols and back up the Lebanese Army that will confiscate any weapons he finds.

Between Nasrallah's warnings and Siniora's clarifications, emerge the signs of a Lebanese internal disagreement concerning the interpretation of Resolution 1701 and how to implement it. Disagreement revolves around two basic issues: Hezbollah's weapons in the South of the Litani zone, and the international monitoring outside that zone.

In the international zone created by Resolution 1701, extending from the Blue Line to the Litani River, Hezbollah has lost its former freedom of military and security action because of the intensive presence of the UN forces and the Lebanese Army, although it has not lost its weapons kept in bunkers. Upon approving the deployment of the army in the South, Hezbollah concluded an unwritten agreement with the Government and Fued Siniora, via his minister Mohamed Fenish, whereby it pledged to hide all weapons and observe the army's right to confiscate any weapons it may come across. This agreement allowed Hezbollah to preserve its arms and continue to exist in the southern towns and villages through civil societies.

However, soon emerged a discrepancy in interpreting and implementing this agreement between Hezbollah and the Head of Government, for the latter considers that confiscating Hezbollah's arms is not limited to uncovered equipment but even the hidden ones. Accordingly, the Lebanese Army has the right to break into arms depots if it has information about them or in compliance with the UN forces' demand.

Hezbollah receives Siniora's interpretation with much reservation and suspicion since it suggests the disarmament of Hezbollah before finding solutions for the suspended problems and issues which were the cause behind the existence of such weapons. The most important of these are the prisoner issue, occupied Shabaa Farms and the airspace violations by Israeli planes. Besides, there are no international guarantees for protecting Lebanon from Israel.

Another no less sensitive disagreement relates to the UN monitoring outside the South of the Litani zone. Hezbollah fears the extension of the UN forces' mission to turn into monitoring forces on the state and its sovereignty. These fears have been provoked by the side security agreements concluded by the premiership and the Ministry of Interior with the German Government to set a marine monitoring system in the Lebanese territorial waters and an air monitoring system at Beirut Airport under the cover of training the Lebanese mechanics and supplying them with high tech equipment.

Under the pressure of these security misgivings, Hezbollah has sent the first warning signals of the repercussions resulting from modifying the task of the UN forces in the South or extending it towards the inside of the country. These warnings were enough to raise the concern of the international community, mainly the European states actively participating in these forces, for they fear the development of a popular opposition to the UN forces that could lead to attacking them.

The European diplomatic circles in Beirut show their satisfaction with the implementation of Resolution 1701 and the commitment of all parties to it. But they express concern at the increase of opposition to the mission by the UN forces outside the borders zone in addition to the intensification of the internal political conflict, leading to pressures on Siniora's Government. Those circles in fact give extreme importance to Siniora's Government, considering that it is a part of the stability of the situation and a condition for its improvement.

These circles say that focused talks have taken place with the Lebanese political and security officials with the aim of getting reassuring answers concerning the work and security of the UN forces. In these talks, European intelligence officers asked many questions about the places where the military divisions would be deployed and the feeling of the local inhabitants toward the UN soldiers, the eventual risks and the ways of protecting the security of these soldiers.

The Lebanese side, always according the same circles, saw to it to give the assurances needed, together with asserting the role of the army in the South. But the Europeans, in turn, received a torrent of Lebanese questions of this kind: What will the UNIFIL forces do north of the Litani River? Does the intensive existence of the navy aim at controlling the coast or imposing a kind of embargo? What is the real role of the UNIFIL, and will it evolve into a deterrent and fighting one? Can these forces run patrols and checkpoints without coordination with the Lebanese Army? These questions were accompanied with recommendations from Lebanese officials, perhaps the most important of which was that the reinforced UNIFIL should not be involved in the internal conflict between the Lebanese dissidents, that is, 14th March forces and Hezbollah.

The European diplomatic circles give great importance to the control of the sea, but they admit that there is an excessive crowdedness and a kind of anarchy, for the control of the Lebanese coast does not need all these ships. According to a UN expert, the cause of the anarchy was the whole thing happened hastily and the UN has never experienced sea control and does not know what to do.

By Refaat Sayyed Ahmed, Alarab Online, November 27, 2006

Now that a few months have passed since Hezbollah's historic and strategic victory over the Zionist enemy, with all its repercussions on both the regional and international levels, it is time to ask, "What's next?" What is the political and military future of Hezbollah? And where is the American-Israeli scheme moving after having made use of Resolution 1701 to extend the UNIFIL mission that is gradually turning into occupation forces aiming at re-establishing the military balance in Lebanon?

A Common Future

First, it must be fully realised that Hezbollah's future is linked to the future of the whole region; it is not an isolated island in the rough Arab and Islamic ocean, and consequently, its victory is not an odd accident, but a part of the general trend where the aggressive American-Zionist project to dominate the region is defeated. In fact, putting Hezbollah in its Arab and Islamic context and taking into account the surrounding events is a necessary condition to clearly and rightly foresee the future of Hezbollah.

Endless Plots

Second, we believe that the American-Israeli plan to destroy Hezbollah that came out victorious from the war will not stop; it will rather continue with more determination and spitefulness because of its defeat – or at least the disruption of its mechanisms and goals. Thus the USA and Israel will use all their means and capabilities inside and outside Lebanon to achieve the same objective.

In this context, perhaps the suspicious moves of the American Ambassador to Lebanon since the end of the war on 14 August 2006 and until now and his continuous communications and instructions to the 14th March forces give a clear proof of the size and quality of the American ambitions inside Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah's military and political forces together or gradually.

In parallel with these moves, the US and Israeli Administrations seek to make alliances with the Arab states euphemistically described as 'moderate' – while in fact they are serving Washington wholeheartedly. These alliances aim at besieging Hezbollah again in preparation for striking Iran and Syria later, and the latest-formed suspicious alliance of this kind was the 6+2 Alliance that comprises the Gulf Co-operation Council plus Egypt and Jordan, headed and controlled by Washington. The first meeting of this alliance, held in Cairo during Ramadan, was headed by the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

At the same time, and to back these schemes, an extremist Salafist campaign, financed by the Gulf States, was launched, accusing all Arab resistance movements, including the Shiites, of infidelity and extremism and insulting the prophet's disciples and wives in order to divert the attention away from the core issue by creating a new conflict.

The Media War

Third, the oil media in Lebanon, London, Cairo and some websites – as soon as they knew for certain Hezbollah's victory, against their wishes and plan – began an enraged campaign against every resisting force in the region. They claimed that the resistance forces in Lebanon, Syria and Iran were calling for sectarian conflict and carrying a Shiite expansionist agenda more dangerous than the Zionist project.

They have reached this state of political senility in order to divert the attention from the core conflict with the Zionist enemy after the anti-resistance alliance failed to break the will of the Arab and Islamic resistance forces headed by Hezbollah. They are trying to circumvent this victory and try to distort it through establishing a political-religious alliance, labelled by one of the important Egyptian newspapers, 'The Independent Al-Fajer Newspaper' on 30 October 2006 "the Sunni-Israeli Alliance". This alliance was produced by a secret agreement concluded in Aqaba, Jordan with the participation of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, with an Israeli political and military leadership opposing Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Some hard line Salafists have been drawn – whether intentionally or not – into the big snare set by this alliance, and they have started waging an intensive war on the Shiites, thus turning the conflict at this critical stage of the region's and the world's history from to a Sunni-Shiite conflict, instead of an Islamic-Israeli one.

Therefore, the plan targeting Hezbollah is wider than the Lebanese field; it is getting more and more complicated and expanding further in line with the American world strategy.

Fourth, in this respect, we confirm that this scheme will continue with diverse tools and it will be able to perform its suspect role especially following the joining of some European states and the expansion of UNIFIL powers. As a result of forging the priorities and diverting the basics of the conflict, Olmert has become for some people of the hard line trend a peaceful dove in comparison with Iran and Syria. But will this scheme succeed in achieving its targets?

The direct answer to the question above can be summarised in the one sentence that such alliances inside and outside Lebanon will certainly fail. Why? Because they have simply not learned the lesson from Hezbollah's victory.

By Patrick Martin, World Socialist Web Site, November 23, 2006

When a murder investigation begins, the starting point is not to shout from the rooftops some unfounded suspicion, but to assemble, in a methodical and serious fashion, all the physical and circumstantial evidence. A list of suspects must be drawn up, each with their possible motives.

Such a systematic approach is especially necessary in the case of the murder of a prominent political personality, where a "crime of passion" or accident can be ruled out, and the clearest avenue to determining responsibility is to ask: who stood to gain by the individual's elimination?

In the assassination of Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, however, the Bush administration and its allies in the American media follow no such procedure. Before any evidence had been collected, almost before the body was cold, the US government and its media servants began declaring that the killing was a Syrian plot.

The ferocity of this response should in and of itself raise eyebrows. Another agenda is at work. Or, worse, the clamour to blame Syria, without evidence or any attempt at substantiation, represents a premeditated course of action, prepared ahead of time, suggesting foreknowledge of the event.

It is of central importance that the Gemayel assassination takes place at a critical point of internal conflict within the American state. A raging battle is taking place within the US ruling elite over pursuing relations with Syria and Iran, in an effort to salvage what can be saved from the debacle of the US conquest and occupation of Iraq.

The Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel established by Congress to review US policy in Iraq and reluctantly embraced by Bush, is known to be considering a proposal for direct talks by the US government with both Syria and Iran. Sections of the Bush administration, and particularly the neo-conservatives linked most closely with Israeli foreign policy, have begun a pre-emptive attack on this forthcoming proposal.

Nearly three weeks before the murder, on November 2, the Bush administration issued an hysterically worded warning of plans by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah to seize power in Lebanon. Without offering any factual basis, the White House statement declared that the US government was "increasingly concerned by mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government".

Since then, there has been a steady drumbeat in the American media about alleged Syrian conspiracies, culminating in the editorial in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, issued barely 24 hours after Gemayel's death, declaring that Syria was responsible and calling on the Iraq Study Group to reconsider its plans to recommend a Washington approach to Damascus for talks.

How Would Syria Benefit?

Why would Syria order the killing of the Lebanese minister of industry? Unlike former prime minister Rafik Hariri, murdered in 2005, Gemayel was not a leading personality in the so-called "anti-Syria" faction of the Lebanese ruling elite. He was a distinctly junior figure, famous only for his last name.

Gemayel's grandfather and namesake was the founder of the Phalange, the Lebanese Christian organisation formed in imitation of the Nazi brownshirts. His uncle Bashir and father Amin were both presidents of Lebanon, and Amin Gemayel still heads the remnants of the Phalange, a group now thoroughly discredited for collaborating with both Syria and Israel at various points in the Lebanese civil war.

The Phalange became notorious for its arrogant and dictatorial attitude towards anyone outside the Maronite sect from which it arose, whether other non-Maronite Christians or the various Muslim religious groupings. Its bloodiest action came in 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when Phalangist militiamen massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, with the permission and assistance of the Israeli army (the crime for which Ariel Sharon was removed as Israeli defence minister).

Pierre Gemayel was killed Monday in Beirut by gunmen wielding automatic weapons. Previous assassinations of anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon have been carried out by remote-controlled car bombs, a method requiring some degree of technical sophistication. The killing of Gemayel was carried out in broad daylight by attackers who clearly knew the victim by sight, as they riddled him with bullets but spared his driver.

If they had been captured – certainly a risk in heavily armed Beirut – the paymaster could have been quickly determined. If the Syrian regime was responsible, it was running an enormous risk of having the crime traced back to Damascus and providing a pretext for outside military action, by the United States, Israel, the UN Security Council, or some combination.

The assassination makes no sense from the standpoint of the interests of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Syria's international position was clearly becoming more favourable, with the resumption of diplomatic relations with Iraq and a proposal for a tripartite summit of Iran, Iraq and Syria to discuss issues raised by the ongoing anti-US insurgency. The day of Gemayel's death, the Syrian foreign minister was received in Baghdad for the first time in two decades.

Moreover, Assad has the prospect of an impending diplomatic approach by the United States, for the first time since the US ambassador was withdrawn from Damascus after the assassination of Hariri. Former secretary of state James Baker, the chairman of the Iraq Study Group, has already had extensive face-to-face contact with Syrian diplomats, signalling that the US policy of isolating Syria is breaking down.

James Steinberg, former Clinton administration deputy national security adviser, told the International Herald Tribune that there "are so many potential candidates who might have played a role", besides Syria. "If you look at it rationally, the Syrians are on a semi-roll now, so why would they do something like that?" he asked.

An analysis in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz conceded, "pure political and diplomatic logic makes it difficult to see Damascus behind the assassination. The day Gemayel was killed, Syria chalked up one of its most significant diplomatic achievements since its defeat in Lebanon in April 2005: the renewal of full diplomatic relations with Iraq. Syria is also on the way to achieving a semi-official stamp of approval from Washington as able to calm things down in Iraq."

The Crisis within Lebanon

In terms of its political impact in Lebanon, the Gemayel assassination comes just at the beginning of a campaign by Syria's ally, the Shiite Hezbollah organisation, to force a redistribution of political power in favour of the Shiite parties. Only days before the murder, five Shiite members resigned from the cabinet and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hasan Nasrallah announced a campaign of mass demonstrations to pressure the government to reach a deal for greater Shiite representation.

In his November 18 speech, Nasrallah called on Prime Minister Fuad Siniora either to resign in favour of a national unity government that would give increased representation to Hezbollah and another Shiite party, Amal, or to hold early parliamentary elections. He emphasised that Hezbollah would organise peaceful protest demonstrations and opposed any effort to settle the political crisis by force. "Nobody is raising arms," he told his followers. "Nobody is making a coup or popular revolution."

Nasrallah's appeal was widely expected to produce huge demonstrations in southern Beirut and other Shiite-populated areas. As the Los Angeles Times noted, the Gemayel assassination has undermined this campaign: "Fuelled by anger over Gemayel's death, the anti-Syria bloc may end up beating Hezbollah to the streets. The coalition called on mourners to turn out en masse for Gemayel's funeral Thursday; the procession will double as a pointed political display."

Given these circumstances, it is entirely possible that the motive for the Gemayel assassination was to weaken Syria's suddenly improved international position and reverse the gains being made by Hezbollah in Lebanese internal politics. In that case, the suspicion would fall, not on Syria, but on its antagonists, particularly Israel and the United States.

Two additional factors reinforce such a suspicion. The assassination of Gemayel coincided with the release of a United Nations report on the Israeli use of cluster bombs in Lebanon during the month-long war last summer. UN investigators found that Israel had engaged in "a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate force" that constituted "a flagrant violation" of international law.

Some 90 percent of the cluster bombs used by Israel – containing millions of explosive bomblets that continue to maim and kill and make much of south Lebanon uninhabitable – were dropped in the final three days of the war, when the impending ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal were an established prospect and only the final details were being worked out.

According to the report, "these weapons were used deliberately to turn large areas of fertile agricultural land into 'no go' areas for the civilian population." Moreover, the report rejected Israel's claims that in bombing bridges, roads, power plants and other sites, it was targeting Hezbollah fighters. Instead, the UN investigators said they were "convinced that damage inflicted on some infrastructure was done for the sake of destruction".

The Gemayel assassination, however, chased this UN report off the front pages of newspapers. Television news broadcast footage of the bullet-riddled car in Beirut, rather than noting the authoritative international finding that Israel was guilty of war crimes and "collective punishment" against the Lebanese people

Israeli UN ambassador Dan Gillerman accused Syria of responsibility for the Gemayel assassination – without offering any evidence to back the charge. His Syrian counterpart, ambassador Bashar Al-Jafaari, denied responsibility and noted that Israel itself was a "beneficiary" of the crime. "Israel, only two days ago, on Friday, was condemned in the UN General Assembly for its crimes in Gaza. So there was a unanimous international voice to condemn Israeli terrorism committed in the occupied territories. Therefore, it is in the interest of the Israeli assassinating hand to shed light on somebody else."

There is a final "coincidence" to note. The day after Gemayel was shot to death in Beirut, another prominent Middle Eastern political figure was the target of an assassination attempt, albeit one much less publicised. A bomb exploded on the undercarriage of the armoured SUV in the motorcade of the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. Investigation found another, much larger bomb on another car in the motorcade, which had not yet been detonated.

The incident was unusual because Mashhadani's vehicles were inside the Green Zone, the US-controlled section of downtown Baghdad where American troops maintain tight security. How could a bomb be attached to any car in the Green Zone without US security forces knowing about it? Given Mashhadani's political views – he is a strident Sunni nationalist, who has condemned the US occupation as "the work of butchers", and vehemently denounced the Israeli attack on Lebanon – the suspicion is unavoidable that the bombing was the work of US or allied intelligence agencies seeking to send a message to a particularly troublesome Iraqi political figure.

It is in the nature of the secretive criminal methods of political assassination that it may well be impossible to make a definitive judgment about who is responsible. It is possible, though unlikely, that Syria, or perhaps a rogue faction of Syrian intelligence, actually ordered the killing of Pierre Gemayel. It is possible, and quite likely, that US or Israeli intelligence played the main role. Or some other agency: Iran, a Lebanese Christian faction or elements within the Phalange itself who had some grievance with the Gemayel clan.

One thing is certain however. The Gemayel murder has been seized on by the Bush administration, the American media and the state of Israel for their own purposes, to shift public opinion in the United States in favour of military action against Syria.