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  • Feb 19th, 2005
  • Comments Off on Lebanese minister quits, Syria replaces spy chief
Lebanon's tourism minister resigned on Friday and Syria named a new military intelligence chief amid political turbulence following the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. Hariri's killing in Beirut on Monday sparked anti-Syrian fury among many Lebanese and renewed world pressure on Damascus to loosen its political grip and remove its troops from Lebanon. Tourism Minister Farid al-Khazen, a Maronite Christian, said he had quit because the Syrian-backed government was unable to "remedy the dangerous situation in the country".

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad named his brother-in-law, Major-General Asef Shawkat, as head of military intelligence to replace retiring Major-General Hassan Khalil. Syrian sources said the change took effect on Monday, Khalil's 60th birthday.

In August, Assad issued a decree barring the extension of service terms of all officers in the armed forces.

Khazen was the first minister to resign after Hariri's assassination. "There is no substitute for national dialogue on the basis of the Taif agreement," he said, referring to the deal that ended the 1975-1990 civil war and committed Syria to moving the troops it keeps in Lebanon to the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The pro-Syrian government has come under intense pressure from Lebanon's opposition to resign since Hariri was killed, along with 14 other people, in a huge bomb blast. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and other opposition figures have blamed the government and its Syrian backers for Hariri's death. Jumblatt told reporters the president, prime minister and cabinet should quit and Syrian troops should leave Lebanon.

"This isn't just the opposition," he said. "All the Lebanese are with Hariri, a free Lebanon and Syrian withdrawal." Jumblatt, a former Syrian ally, has joined his Christian civil war foes in urging Damascus to quit Lebanon. Hariri had moved to a similar position in the months before his death.

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Traffic jams returned to Beirut streets on Friday after three days of mourning for the Sunni Muslim billionaire.

"We ask the state to unveil the perpetrators ... and not to close the file of the martyred Hariri along with the long list of other unresolved crimes," Sheikh Ahmed al-Kurdi told worshippers in a downtown mosque near where Hariri was buried.

Lebanese of all religious beliefs have flocked to Hariri's grave to bring flowers and light candles since his funeral on Wednesday turned into a mass anti-Syrian street protest.

Financial markets were busy but mostly stable on their first trading day since his death, despite political tensions and US President George W. Bush's latest demand for Syria to pull out its 14,000 troops. The Lebanese pound closed unchanged, but the central bank had to sell dollars, as it had pledged to do, to defend the currency against pressure from jittery investors.

Shares in the Hariri-founded Solidere real estate company, Lebanon's biggest firm, fell the maximum 15 percent allowed.

Officials said President Emile Lahoud had finally gone to pay condolences to Hariri's relatives, who had refused to let him or other top officials attend Wednesday's funeral.

Copyright Reuters, 2005


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