Anger, unease permeate Lebanon after assassination of politician

Published: 2007-09-21

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNS) -- An atmosphere of uneasiness and anger permeated Lebanon in the aftermath of the assassination of a Christian politician just days before lawmakers were scheduled to elect a new president. A pro-government Christian member of parliament and five others were killed when a car bomb blasted through a Christian suburb of Beirut Sept. 19. Antoine Ghanem was the seventh prominent anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated in Lebanon since 2005. "We have had enough. Enough," said Aurore Rebehmed, a 34-year-old Christian mother. Immediately after hearing about the blast Rebehmed, who said she was frantic, drove several miles to check on her two young daughters who were visiting their grandparents, just a block away from the explosion. "I was only thinking, 'What if my children are out playing in the street?'" she said. "When I arrived, my daughters were telling me, 'Look what the bad guys have done.'" The attack exacerbated an already tense situation in Lebanon since the war with Israel in 2006, followed by a political stalemate between the ruling majority and the opposition, two political assassinations and a standoff between Sunni militants and the Lebanese army, in which some 400 were killed.

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