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/ 23 November 2007
Lebanon again postponed an election to choose a new head of state by a midnight Friday deadline amid continuing deadlock between rival political factions and fears of a dangerous power vacuum. The country’s pro-Syrian President, Emile Lahoud, plans to step down when his term expires at midnight.
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/ 5 December 2006
A sea of angry mourners converged on southern Beirut on Tuesday for the funeral of a young Shi’ite man killed during mass opposition rallies amid fears of an outbreak of sectarian violence. ”The blood of the Shi’ites is boiling,” shouted mourners as weeping women tossed rose petals on the coffin.
Israel will continue its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas until two soldiers are freed and rocket strikes end, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday told United Nations envoys. Israeli jets hit Lebanese army bases and flattened homes in a deadly new blitz of air strikes on Tuesday, the seventh day of an assault that has killed at least 240 people.
”Are my sons under the ashes? Only God knows,” says a veiled Oum Hassan, weeping as she rests in a public garden after fleeing Beirut’s southern suburbs where her home was turned to rubble by Israeli air strikes. Clad in black, the widow sits on a green bench under the tall trees to seek shelter from the blazing summer sun and cries.
Lebanon shook under a new wave of air raids on Monday after Israel vowed a fierce response to Hezbollah guerrilla attacks with no sign of a let-up in a conflict that has killed about 200 people in six days. At least 21 people were killed as fighter jets slammed missiles into the port of Beirut, a military base in the northern city of Tripoli, and Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in the east.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah declared ”open war” on Israel on Friday after emerging unscathed from an Israeli air strike on his home and office in the Lebanese capital. Meanwhile, a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting ended with no action on Beirut’s demand for an immediate end to Israeli air strikes on its territory.
Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut’s international airport before dawn on Thursday and killed at least 27 Lebanese civilians in a series of raids after Israel vowed a harsh response to the killing and capture of its soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas. Fighter jets swooped in on the airport, firing missiles on two runways, forcing the divertion of flights to neighbouring Cyprus.
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/ 7 December 2005
Fugitive al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed in a new videotape aired on Wednesday that the network’s leader Osama bin Laden was still alive and leading ”jihad” against the West. The turbaned Islamist also called on al-Qaeda fighters to attack oil installations in Muslim countries, according to al-Jazeera television which broadcast the video.
A group calling itself the Organisation of al-Qaeda Jihad in Europe, also identified in some reports as the Secret Organisation of al-Qaeda in Europe, claimed Thursday’s attacks in London and threatened similar strikes in Italy, Denmark and other "Crusader" states with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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/ 25 February 2005
A United Nations team vowed on Friday to be impartial in probing in Lebanon the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, as Lebanon waited for powerful neighbour Syria to begin a promised troop redeployment. Damascus is under international pressure and from Lebanon’s opposition to withdraw from its smaller neighbour.