In a press conference Wednesday, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said he had been the victim of an assassination attempt.
In a press conference Wednesday, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said he had been the victim of an assassination attempt.
Geagea’s investigations revealed that there is someone who cares for his existence. He told reporters – with confidence – that he was shot by two bullets while walking with his bodyguards outside his residence in Meerab, northeast of Beirut.
"While I was walking in my garden with some bodyguards, I saw a beautiful flower. I bent to pick it. Meanwhile, I heard two shots, I then flattened the ground. We then saw two holes in a wall of the building. Immediately, we called the security forces who have concluded that the two bullets were fired at more than 1 km distance. This would be more of a sniper, and the sniper rifles used are 12.7 and 14.5 mm caliber, so they are sophisticated, "he said.
Speaking on every detail of the suspected logistics, Geagea went even further in his findings: "They tried to kill me with very sophisticated weapons, far beyond our capabilities. They had placed a camera at 4 km to monitor the site 24/24 to detect our movements. Then, an executive team went into action when it reached the suitable time. Such an operation requires indeed very sophisticated technological means covering a distance of 3 to 6 km.”
Geagea said he believed that "those who stand behind this operation have wanted this to be a definite message."
Without blaming any party, LF leader said that the one who committed the assassination attempt is a "very professional major party, giving the rifles used at a distance of 4, 5 and 6 km. This distance is watched using binoculars," he added!
Besides the security and judicial elements, and the Hollywood technique of this case, it is certain that the head of the Lebanese Forces has sought to exploit the incident at the political and media levels.
"This assassination attempt comes a year before the parliamentary elections,” he said.
“Premier Rafiq Hariri was assassinated a few months after the 2005 elections. There are several similarities between the two assassination operations. Hariri’s fault was that he rallied the Lebanese people to his side. The assassination attempt against me falls within the same framework, like that which targeted Marwan Hamadeh and other leading figures of the Cedar Revolution."
During the press conference held amid draconian security measures taken by the Lebanese army and internal forces on the way to Meerab, Geagea continued, "since long I said the assassination attempts were aimed at transmitting messages. This time the message was definitive."
Accusing the perpetrators of this attack to try to oust him from politics in Lebanon, Geagea considered it obvious that a local party has participated in the operation, "because my positions are starting to bother them," according to his own terms.
The long you live, the more facts you hear ...
