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Lebanon Violence Is Viewed As Omen
Palestinians continue to flee the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, where fighting broke out Sunday.
(By Hussein Malla -- Associated Press)
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"Syria has said, 'You want the truth about who killed Hariri?' " Hakim said. " 'Okay -- we will burn Beirut. You choose.' "
"Khalas," said 26-year-old shop owner Souheir Sahily, using an Arabic expression meaning "It's finished."
Blonde with gold chains down to her navel, Sahily had opened a Swarovski crystal store in Verdun, a symbol of the avidity with which traditionally pleasure-minded Lebanese have sought the finer things in life after their 1975-90 civil war. Her crystal figurines of unicorns and teddy bears lay broken.
"I want to leave Lebanon," Sahily said. "There will never be a Lebanon."
Wealthy Arabs from the Persian Gulf who summer at Beirut's beaches, casinos and hotels each year began canceling reservations starting with the week's first bombing, ruining the summer tourist season.
"Lebanese people are the best," but "I have family," said Abdul al-Sharif, a Saudi government employee vacationing here. "I'm checking out today."
Beirut residents retreated indoors after each day of work and school this week, leaving normally raucous streets silent and empty.
White House spokesman Tony Snow charged Tuesday that Syria was trying, through the violence, to influence the Security Council's decision on a tribunal, as well as disrupt security in Lebanon.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem has denied that his country played any role. Syria's ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, also saw a pattern in the violence, just as Lebanese do, but suggested that the culprits were Lebanon or its allies.
"This is not a coincidence," the Syrian ambassador said. "Some people are trying to influence the Security Council and to make pressure on the council so they can go ahead with the adoption of the draft resolution on the tribunal."
Syria's critics point to such events as the shooting death of a cabinet minister, Pierre Gemayel, on Nov. 21, the same day the Security Council approved now-stalled plans for a Lebanese trial in Hariri's slaying.
On Feb. 13, bombs on buses killed three in a Christian village outside Beirut, as Saudi Arabia and Iran were reported to be working privately on a plan to resolve Lebanon's troubles, against Syria's wishes. The bus bombings heightened fears among Lebanese that the country was being pulled inexorably back into civil war.
