Nabih Berry: Terrorists Aim At Intriguing Civil War In Lebanon

Beirut, Jan 4, IRNA – By launching terrorist attacks in various parts of Lebanon and assassination of politicians from both the March 8th and 14th groups terrorist groups aim at intriguing civil war in Lebanon and flickering flames of sedition, Lebanon’s parliament speaker said Friday. “Preserving the national unity and remaining alert for effective confrontation with the enemies’ plots is a shared responsibility for everyone,” said Nabih Berry in a meeting with the Iranian Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi, during which the two sides condemned the Thursday evening terrorist operation in southern Beirut’s Zahiyah district. The two sides in their meeting discussed regional developments, bilateral ties, and the various dimension of the terrorist attacks in Lebanon in recent days. Roknabadi in the meeting condemned the recent terrorist attacks in Tripoli and Zahiyah district of Beirut, as well as the assassination of the former Lebanese finance minister Muhammad Shatah and the double suicide explosions in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut. “All those operations were, as you said, aimed at intriguing an internal sedition in Lebanon, and they are all planned and plotted by the terrorist Zionist regime and its agents,” said the Iranian envoy. He said that the Takfiri terrorists are exclusively the Zionists’ agents implementing the plots hatched by them and their mercenaries today. A huge explosion killed at least four people in a district of the Lebanese capital city Beirut which is mainly inhibited by Hezbollah Islamic Resistance Movement on Thursday, just days after a former minister and vocal critic of the Shi’a group was killed in another explosion. According to the Red Cross, at least four people died and nine were wounded in the blast. More casualties were expected given the population density of the area, which is a southern suburb of the city. Images on Hezbollahˈs Al-Manar TV showed smoke billowing at the site of the blast and firefighters putting out fires in cars. A series of bombs have hit Lebanon in recent months as the war in Syria spills over into its smaller neighbor. Mohammad Chatah, who was a former ambassador to the United States and an aide to former prime minister Saad Hariri, was killed on Friday by the explosion close to government headquarters in central Beirut. The blast also killed at least four others. Chatah was attending a meeting of senior leaders of the March 14 political party, which is staunchly opposed to the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria and critical Hezbollah inside of Lebanon./end