Mashnouq Asks Govt. to Ban Two Tripoli Groups over Mosques Blasts

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Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq announced Sunday that he has asked the council of ministers to disband the Tripoli-based Arab Democratic Party and a faction of the Islamic Unification Movement in connection with the deadly 2013 blasts that rocked two mosques in the northern city.

“The era of shy justice has ended and the era of settlements at the expense of people's blood is gone. The era of blackmailing us with civil peace has also ended,” Mashnouq said during a ceremony honoring him in the Aley district town of Dhour al-Abadiyeh.

“I declare to you that today I signed a request and submitted it to the council of ministers, demanding the disbanding of the Arab Democratic Party and the IUM faction led by Hashem Minqara,” he added.

“We will follow up on this case through politics and law until the end,” the minister vowed.

In remarks to LBCI television, Arab Democratic Party official Ali Fidda said Mashnouq's decision is “political.”

“It is part of the political overbidding between him and (Resigned Justice Minister Ashraf) Rifi, especially that the indictment has acquitted us,” Fidda added.

Rifi for his part told the TV network that he would “exceptionally take part in any cabinet session that has the resolution to disband the two parties on its agenda.”

March 8 ministerial sources meanwhile labeled Mashnouq's decision in remarks to MTV as “political overbidding,” noting that “it will not pass in cabinet.”

On September 2, Lebanon's judiciary indicted two Syrian intelligence officers it accused of masterminding the deadly blasts.

The double bombing killed 45 people and wounded more than 500, and a series of indictments have already been handed down against Lebanese and Syrians accused of involvement.

The indictment names Captain Mohamed Ali Ali, an official in the Palestine branch of Syria's intelligence services, and Nasser Jouban, an official in Syria's political security branch.

The two men, neither of whom is in custody, are accused of helping to prepare the attack, placing explosives in cars and assigning a Lebanese cell to carry out the bombing. The Lebanese who are in custody hail from the Tripoli neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, the bastion of the pro-Damascus Arab Democratic Party.

The attacks targeted two Sunni mosques in Tripoli, which has frequently experienced tensions between Sunnis and Alawites who belong to the same religious minority as Syrian President Bashar Assad and tend to support his government.

The indictment alleges the attacks also involved other high-ranking Syrian officials, who are accused of directing Ali and Jouban to organize them.

The blasts in the northern city were the deadliest attack in Lebanon since the country's 1975-1990 civil war and raised fears that the conflict in neighboring Syria could be inexorably seeping across the border.

Lebanon's political landscape is largely divided between parties that back Assad and those who support the uprising against him that began in March 2011.

Comments 3
Thumb ex-fpm 11 September 2016, 15:48

March 8 ministerial sources meanwhile labeled Mashnouq's decision in remarks to MTV as “political overbidding,” noting that “it will not pass in cabinet.”

that is the balance the terrorist party keeps talking about.

Thumb Mystic 11 September 2016, 16:37

They are not so fast to condemn and dig into the crime against Jabal Mohsen in january 2015.

Thumb gigahabib 11 September 2016, 19:31

Aha, so will Rifi, who supports the Salafist gangs of Tripoli and elsewhere, be indicted as well?