Pro-Aleppo Slogans on Russian Embassy in Beirut, Security Upped after Ankara Assassination

Following the recent assassination of the Russian ambassador in Turkey, the attack resonated in the capital Beirut and triggered some reactions where a group of youth wrote overnight slogans on the cement blocs surrounding the Russian embassy in Beirut's Corniche al-Mazraa area and managed to disappear, al-Joumhouria daily reported Wednesday.

A group of youth managed to sneak late on Tuesday and write slogans on the cement blocs around the embassy “denouncing the battle in Aleppo” and “declaring solidarity with the Syrian people and victims,” a security source told the daily on condition of anonymity.

The source added: “The writers of the slogans, who were estimated at about twenty young men, were able to creep into the streets around the embassy and leave the region.”

It added that the embassy has upped security measures that were not visible to the naked eye, and that preventive security steps were taken, “the measures were taken at the rest of the diplomatic missions in Lebanon. Lebanon has pledged earlier commitment towards the embassies,” added the source.

The Russian ambassador to Ankara was shot dead Monday at an art exhibition in the Turkish capital by a gunman shouting “Aleppo” and “revenge.”