Not before the dust settled down after Iranian President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon where he was received as a national hero, Jeffrey David Feltman, Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs landed in Beirut. Feltman, a former US ambassador to Lebanon, met Lebanese President Suleiman and Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri, whom he delivered Ben Obama’s personal message. The Speaker of Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri (founder of Amal party) refused to meet Feltman.
In an interview with Danna Harman, published in Israeli daily Ha’aretz (October 24, 2010), Feltman said: “Lebanon right now is going through a difficult period. This is something that is related to the internal dynamics of Lebanon, not to the conflict with Israel. What is happening now is there are some people in Lebanon saying, you have to chose between justice – as symbolized by the special tribunal for Lebanon—and stability. In our mind that is an artificial choice. The people saying this are the very ones trying to destabilize Lebanon now. The reason I went to Lebanon was to deliver a message from Obama which was a reaffirmation of our strong support for Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence. What we are trying to do is to find a way to lower the tensions and reduce the temperature in Lebanon.”
The message in fact concerned the finding of the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) on the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (father of the current prime minister Sa’ad Hariri). Both US and Israel worries that STL may find the truth about Israeli Mossad being behind the assassination.
According to Dr. Franklin Lamb, Feltman during his meeting with Sa’ad Hariri made an offer Hizbullah cannot refuse. The deal was that STL blame a dead Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyah and Sheikh Nasrallah needs only to say that Hizbullah leadership did not know what Imad was upto. This will close the case and in return the US (and probably Canada) will take Hizbullah of the ‘terrorist list’.
On 19 October 2010, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), based near The Hague, attempted to re-enact the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, five years after the event.
The STL carried out the test explosion on a vast shooting range. The STL wanted to demonstrate that, contrary to the near-unanimous opinion of explosives experts, it is possible for an explosive-packed truck to cause the material damage that was observed in Beirut. To that end, the STL reconstructed the exact replica of the crime scene on the French military base in Captieux, near Bordeaux, including identical vehicles. The equivalent of 2,5 tons of TNT were used to test whether the confinement effect of the surrounding buildings on the explosion can dig a crater in the ground and send cars flying through the air.
Officials said the results would be kept confidential.
According to the prosecutor’s version, the attack was carried out by means of a truck charged with at least 1,8 tons of explosives that were detonated by a suicide bomber when he intercepted Rafik Hariri’s armored car. However, what remains to be explained is how a surface explosion in an open space can account for such a deep crater in the ground.
Rehmat's World 