Lebanese Industry Minister Gunned Down in Beirut
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Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his party’s radio station and Lebanon’s official news agency reported.
His fatal shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon, where Hizbullah’s leading Muslim Shi’ite party has threatened to topple the government if it does not get a bigger say in Cabinet decision making.
Gemayel was rushed to a nearby hospital seriously wounded, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. and Voice of Lebanon, the Phalange Party’s radio station, reported.
Witnesses said Gemayel was shot in his car in Jdeideh, a Christian neighborhood, his constituency on the northern edge of Beirut. The party radio later said he was dead, as did the National News Agency.
Gemayel, the minister of industry and son of former President Amin Gemayel, was a member of the Phalange party and supporter of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, which has been locked in a power struggle with pro-Syrian factions led by Hizbullah.
Saad Hariri, leader of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, broke off a televised news conference after hearing that Gemayel had been shot.
British Foreign Secretary, who began a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni minutes after media outlets announced the assassination, strongly condemned the act, calling it “deeply damaging.”
“There are enough problems in Lebanon. We are anxious to rebuild [there], and not for more death and destruction,” Becket declared, adding that the killing had “only just” happened, and that the world would need to wait and learn what lay behind it. “This can only increase tension in the region,” she said.