Lebanese politician shot dead

BEIRUT, Lebanon – One of Lebanon’s most pronounced political crises in a generation slid into bloodshed Tuesday when assailants showered gunfire on a car carrying an anti-Syrian politician and scion of the country’s most prominent Christian family, killing him and a bodyguard and pushing Lebanon a step closer to civil strife.

The assassination of Pierre Gemayel, a divisive figure in a country riven by sectarian tension, is the latest slaying in an escalating struggle over Lebanon’s political future following this summer’s war between Hezbollah and Israel, the outcome of which affects the regional ambitions of the United States, Iran, Syria and Israel.

“We will not allow assassins to control Lebanon’s destiny and its people’s future,” Prime Minister Fouad Saniora said.

The shots along a busy street that killed Gemayel, the industry minister, reverberated across Beirut as dusk fell. In the city’s Shiite Muslim south, where Gemayel was among the most reviled of Christian politicians, occasional gunfire erupted in celebration, and some residents expressed satisfaction at his death. Across town, in Christian East Beirut, his supporters set fires in protest along usually busy intersections, sending smoke eddying over emptied streets. At the hospital where he was taken, scores gathered in the lobby and parking lot. Some hurriedly spoke into phones. Their eyes red, women sobbed and men wailed with grief.

“We want revenge!” a few shouted. “We want revenge!”

“I have one wish,” Gemayel’s father, former President Amin Gemayel, told them after nightfall, “that tonight be a night of prayer to contemplate the meaning of this martyrdom and how to protect this country. I call on all those who appreciate Pierre’s martyrdom to preserve his cause and for all of us to remain in the service of Lebanon. We don’t want reactions and revenge.”

As he left, the crowd shouted, “Amin, don’t frown! If you want soldiers, we’ll don their uniforms.”

Gemayel, a 34-year-old father of two and an up-and-coming politician, was killed when his car was ambushed by men from one or two cars that collided with it in the suburban neighborhood of Jdeideh. At least three gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons equipped with silencers, hitting him in the head and chest, officials said. Television footage showed the tinted driver’s side window pocked with at least eight shots and the glass on the passenger’s side shattered. The silver sedan’s hood was crumpled from the collision.

Doctors said Gemayel was dead when he arrived at the hospital, and his bodyguard later succumbed to his wounds.

Foreign leaders and officials across the Lebanese divide were unanimous in condemning the assassination. President Bush called for an international investigation to “identity those people and those forces behind the killing.”

Gemayel’s allies were quick to put his killing in the context of a series of assassinations that followed the death of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in a car bombing in February 2005, a turning point in Lebanese politics that led to the departure of Syrian troops from the country. Gemayal’s supporters blamed Syria for his death, as they did with al-Hariri’s and the subsequent assassinations of three other anti-Syrian figures. Gemayel, though, was the first killed since al-Hariri to have an organized and fervent following.

The Syrian government, in a statement carried by its news agency, denied any role in Gemayel’s death, as it has in the previous killings.

Lebanon has been locked in a cold war of sorts since al-Hariri’s assassination and the protests that ensued over Syria’s 29-year presence here. The largest demonstration, which took place in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square on March 14, 2005, was organized by a coalition of Sunni Muslim, Druze and Christian politicians who would take control of the government in parliamentary elections. The event built momentum for the Syrian withdrawal.

Six days earlier, though, a pro-Syrian protest was convened by Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim movement that fought Israel this past July and August and remains the most powerful ally here of Iran and Syria. Since then, Lebanon has been symbolized by those two protests – divided by sect, outlook, ideology and foreign policy.

The simmering struggle flared this month when Hezbollah and its Christian ally, Michel Aoun, demanded greater representation in the Cabinet. Four rounds of talks failed, and two Hezbollah ministers, three other Shiites and an allied politician resigned on Nov. 11, depriving the Cabinet of its Shiite representation and the symbolic sectarian consensus on which Lebanese politics depends.

Two days later, the depleted Cabinet endorsed a U.N. proposal for an international tribunal to try suspects in al-Hariri’s death, a step Syria has adamantly resisted. This past weekend, in another escalation, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah insisted that the government either resign or hold early parliamentary elections. Otherwise, he said, his followers would conduct days, even weeks of protests to bring the government down.

Gemayel’s killing was sure to recalculate the arithmetic of the crisis. Some speculated that, given the tension the killing has unleashed, Hezbollah might pause in its threats to begin protests as early as this week. Nasrallah has called sectarian strife unacceptable, and in a statement Tuesday night, Hezbollah warned of repercussions over the killing.

“There is no doubt that those who carried out this crime want to push Lebanon into chaos, loss and civil war,” it said.

Since Nasrallah pressed his demand for a greater share of power in late October, Lebanese have been faced with what amounts to a long wait: sensing that something might happen, but not sure what or when. Last week, a hard-line Christian leader, Samir Geagea, predicted that assassinations might be ahead. Others warned that killing three ministers would deprive the Cabinet of one-third of its members and, by law, force it to resign, as Hezbollah has demanded. Partisan television stations have railed at one another, streets are awash with politically loaded posters, and emigration is the stuff of everyday conversation.