Killing Mr Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East by Blanford Nicholas

Author:Blanford, Nicholas [Blanford, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: History, Asia, General, Middle East, Political Science, International Relations, World, Middle Eastern, True Crime, Murder
ISBN: 9781845112028
Google: tBfDB18OHY0C
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2006-10-31T16:55:29.806988+00:00

T h e B e 6

i r u t S p r i n g

The blast is heard all over Beirut, a shockingly loud thunderclap that reverberates around the city’s streets up into the hills to the east, rattling windows, triggering car alarms and bringing anxious Lebanese out onto their balconies. At first, most people gaze skyward, thinking it is a sonic boom from a low-flying Israeli Air Force jet. But the towering column of thick black smoke climbing into the deep-blue sky from the city centre tells a different story.

Amer Shehadi, the bodyguard driving the first Mercedes in the convoy, feels the huge blast slam into the back of his car like a solid wave, lifting the vehicle completely off the ground and propelling it several metres down the road.1

‘What happened?’ yells Mohammed Dia, the bodyguard in the passenger seat.

‘We’ve had it,’ Shehadi says.

Carole Farhat is about to enter the St George Annexe facing the St George Hotel when the shockwave hits her. She is hurled some 12 metres to the left and crashes onto the bonnet of a parked car. The blast shatters her left ear drum. A second smaller explosion immediately follows the first and she instinctively screws her eyes shut as a shower of debris falls around her, football-sized chunks of black asphalt and concrete, stones, earth, dust and jagged shards of glass. She opens her eyes again to a world gone dark. Through the dense cloud of dust and smoke, she can just discern the outlines of three bodies lying on the road. It must be an earthquake, she thinks, and begins screaming hysterically.

Ghattas Khoury is in the operating theatre of the American University Hospital (AUH) when the blast occurs less than a mile away. The huge hospital building trembles, dislodging a panel in the false ceiling above the surgery table. Khoury instinctively knows who is the victim. Jumblatt is not in Beirut, and the explosion is so big. It can only be Hariri.

The Beirut Spring 129

Samer Rida, the newspaper delivery supervisor, and his trainee are standing on the roadside just 20 metres to the right of the bomb when it explodes. Rida doesn’t recall hearing the explosion, but he feels a tremendous force yanking him backwards down the steps leading into the St George Yacht Club.

Fady Khoury, the owner of the St George Hotel, is talking on his mobile phone while standing on the steps leading up to the main road when the blast knocks him to his knees. He turns to Yussef Mezher, his chauffeur, who was standing beside him and asks if he is hurt. Yussef replies in a shaken voice that he is okay. Then a second blast topples a stone wall onto Yussef, crushing his pelvis and pinning him to the ground. He screams in pain. Khoury is knocked down by a tin sheet roof which protects him from the collapsed wall. It must be an air raid, thinks Khoury. If there’s a third explosion, I’m dead.

Rami Farous, the owner

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