Probe Concludes Syria's Assad Behind Rafik Hariri Assassination--But What About Hezbollah?

First it was Syria, then it was Hezbollah--now we are back to Syria.

According to the probe into the February 2005 murder, Syrian President Bashar Assad was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri:

The German judge [Judge Detlev Mehlis] who was in charge of an investigation on the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri says the Syrian regime ordered his assassination.


In an interview with a German radio station, Detlev Mehlis said Syrian President Bashar Assad "ordered Hariri killed" because he feared the premier was cooperating with France and the US in order to overturn the Syrian regime and disarm Hezbollah.

Mehlis revealed during the interview, which was carried by many local news agencies, that the main reason for the order was UN Resolution 1559, which took aim at Syria.

According to Wikipedia, UN Resolution 1559 called for the establishment of Lebanese sovereignty over all of its land. It called for "foreign forces" Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and cease intervening in the internal affairs of Lebanon. In addition, the resolution called for all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias to disband. Finally, UN Resolution 1559 declared its support for a "free and fair electoral process"

That would explain both Syria's motive, as well as Hezbollah's--to the degree that terrorist was involved.

After all, back in January it was being reported that it was Hezbollah that was behind Rafik Hariri's murder:

A United Nations tribunal is to indict Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with ordering the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, U.S. news website Newsmax reported on Saturday, adding that the hit itself was planned executed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in collaboration with Hezbollah.

...Saturday's Newsmax report, also cited by Lebanese news website Naharnet, quotes source close to the UN investigation of the Hariri killing who claimed that the order to assassinate the former Lebanon premier was given by Khamenei.

The order was then reportedly passed on to Hezbollah military leader Imad Mughniyeh by the head of the IRG's Quds foece, Qassem Suleymani. Upon receiving the order, Mughniyeh and brother in law Mustapha Badr al-Dine allegedly put together an assassination squad.

Mughniyeh himself was killed in a car bombing in Damascus on February 12, 2008. Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the assassination, but Israel has denied any involvement.

Speaking with Newsmax, a conservative news website, sources close to the probe are quoted as saying that the "Iranians considered Hariri to be an agent of Saudi Arabia, and felt that killing him would pave the way for a Hezbollah takeover of Lebanon."

The report also alleges that both Syrian President Bashar Assad and the head of Syrian intelligence and brother in law Assef Shawkat were also involved in the operation.

Still unanswered it why it took so long for the report to come out.
Is the timing of the report in any way connected to the current riots against the Assad regime?

Going further back--to November last year, there was a Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) featuring an entensive report on the evidence that indicated that Hezbollah carried out Hariri's assassination.

According to the report, after the UN was unable to get any solid leads, it was Capt. Wissam Eid who alone assembled the evidence that showed Hezbollah's involvement.

He got the phone records of all of the cellphones registered with the cell towers in the area of the explosion, deleting those of those who were killed, in Hariri's entourage and those with alibis--resulting in a list of the 'red' phones used by the actual hit team. He then traced which cellphone towers the red phones had used prior to the assassination and was able to determine that the people using them had been tracking Hariri.

Eid also discovered that each person with a red phone had a secondary phone, used to contact network of phones that had existed for at least a year--this was called the 'blue' network

The big break came when an electronics specialist working for Hezbollah--Abd al Majid al Ghamloush--used one of the blue phones. That slip led Eid to 2 brothers, Hussein and Mouin Khreis. Not only were both of them Hezbollah operatives--one of them had been at the site of the explosion.

Eid was later murdered in an explosion--after being warned by Hezbollah to back off.

So 2 questions remain: why did it take 6 years for the report to finally come out--and were Iran and Hezbollah involved?

Technorati Tag: Rafik Hariri and Syria and Hezbollah and Iran.