AMAL Calls Bassil Remarks 'Open Call for Strife' as Supporters Block Roads

The AMAL Movement on Monday issued a stern warning over Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil's leaked remarks against Speaker Nabih Berri.

“Bassil's remarks are an open call for strife,” the movement warned in a statement.

It cautioned that such a strife would “destroy all the achievements that have been made at the level of the country and would remind us of the wars of liberation and elimination.”

“That's why we call on all those concerned to rein in the hot heads and the delusional minds before it's too late,” AMAL added.

Angry AMAL supporters meanwhile blocked roads in the Mar Elias, Salim Salam, Beshara al-Khoury and Bir Hassan areas in Beirut in protest at Bassil's leaked remarks.

AMAL's furious response comes a day after the spread of a cellphone video shot during a Batroun meeting and leaked to media outlets.

In the video, Bassil says that Berri is “a thug and not a parliament speaker.”

Ties between Berri's AMAL Movement and Bassil's FPM have been historically tense.

The latest spat broke out after President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Saad Hariri signed a decree granting one-year's seniority to a number of officers. Berri and Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil have insisted that the decree should have also carried the finance minister's signature.

Aoun and his aides have argued that the decree did not require Khalil's signature because it did not entail any “financial burden,” a point Berri and officials close to him have argued against.

Ain el-Tineh sources have meanwhile warned that the decree would tip sectarian balance in favor of Christians in the army's highest echelons.

The officers in question were undergoing their first year of officer training at the Military Academy when Syrian forces ousted Aoun's military government from Baabda in 1990. They were suspended by the pro-Damascus authorities until 1993 before they resumed their officer training course as second-year cadets.