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Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/assassination-beirut_655140.html?nopager=1
Senior Lebanese Security Chief, an American Ally, Assassinated in Beirut
(Weekly Standard) Lee Smith - On Friday a car bomb in Beirut killed senior Lebanese security chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, along with seven others, while wounding over a hundred in Ashrafiyeh, a busy neighborhood in Christian-majority East Beirut. The bombing and murder of Hassan marks a return to the period of 2005-2008, when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies embarked on a campaign of bombings in residential areas and assassinations of Lebanese figures opposed to the regime in Damascus. Wissam al-Hassan was chief of the internal security force's information branch and had been threatened repeatedly. Just last week, an editorial in a pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper identified Hassan as an enemy, likely foreshadowing his murder. The information branch is the only one of the four security outfits inside Lebanon that has been effective in fighting terror - i.e., Hizbullah and Syria.