Christian leader at that.....watch how this gets played out. Any early predictions?

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20061121%2flebanese_minister_061121&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&showbyline=True

Lebanese Christian leader assassinated

21/11/2006 2:56:04 PM

Lebanon's industry minister Pierre Gemayel, a vocal anti-Syrian critic, was assassinated in the capital of Beirut Tuesday in a move that promises to further strain relations with Syria.

CTV.ca News Staff

Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel looks on ahead of the inter-Lebanese national dialogue in Beirut, Lebanon in this Friday March 3, 2006 file photo. (AP /Hussein Malla)

Lebanese media reported that Gemayel was shot in a street in the Christian suburb of Jdeideh.

At least three gunmen rammed into Gemayel's vehicle and then jumped out firing more than 10 bullets at point-blank range, said witnesses. The two front seats were soaked with blood.

The prominent Christian leader was rushed to hospital where he later died.

Gemayel was a member of the Phalange Party and son of former president Amin Gemayel.

The assassination comes at a time of deepening political crisis after the recent resignation of six cabinet ministers. With Gemayel's killing, the deaths or resignations of just two more ministers would bring down Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government.

That would come as good news for officials in the leading Muslim Shiite party Hezbollah who are threatening to take down the government.

Pro-Syrian Hezbollah groups accuse the government of being allied with the United States. They want a bigger say in cabinet decision-making and are threatening to take to the streets.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah urged his followers to prepare for mass demonstrations to topple the government if it ignores the group's demand to form a national unity cabinet.

Gemayel was a fierce opponent of Syria's influence on Lebanon. Many Lebanese blame Syria for the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Hariri's son Saad, the leader of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, accused Syria of playing a role in Gemayel's death.

"Today one of our main believers in a free democratic Lebanon has been killed. We believe the hand of Syria is all over (this)," he told CNN.
Despite the allegations, Syria "strongly" condemned the assassination Tuesday, reported the country's official news agency SANA shortly after news of the shooting.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, reported CTV's Middle East bureau chief Janis Mackey Frayer.

"But this fits into a rather bloody pattern that has developed over the past near two years now in Lebanon since the assassination of Hariri," she told CTV Newsnet.

"One of the higher profile assassinations happened just under a year ago, last December, when Gibran Tueni, another very vocal anti-Syrian activist, (was killed) when his convoy was blown up. So this latest assassination underscores the tension that is growing in Lebanon."

Political condemnation

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said he was deeply troubled by the assassination.

"This is a very sad day for Lebanon and the Lebanese people. The perpetrators of this cowardly act must be brought to justice," he said in a statement.

"Canada condemns in the strongest terms this attack on Lebanon's independence, stability and democracy."

U.S. President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair also released statements speaking out against Tuesday's assassination.
Blair said the killing "underlines once again the absolute and urgent need for a strategy for the whole of the Middle East that supports those who favour democracy and the proper way of resolving disputes everywhere."

Bush, speaking to U.S. troops in Hawaii, strongly condemned the assassination and called for a full investigation into the death.
He called for the "forces behind the killing" to be exposed.

The EU's External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the killing was shocking.

"The European Commission deplores this appalling crime, which must not be allowed to undermine stability in Lebanon," said Ferrero-Waldner.
As angry protesters in the Christian town of Zahle, in eastern Lebanon, took to the streets shouting anti-Hezbollah slogans, Gemayel's father urged for calm.

"I have one wish, that tonight be a night of prayer to contemplate the meaning of this martyrdom and how to protect this country," said the former president, outside the hospital where his son's body was taken.

"I call on all those who appreciate Pierre's martyrdom to preserve his cause and for all of us to remain at the service of Lebanon. We don't want reactions and revenge."

Gemayel was the fifth anti-Syrian figure killed in the past two years and the first from Siniora's government.

Gemayel was named for his grandfather, who founded the Phalange party in 1936 to exert Christian power in Lebanon. It dominated Christian politics for decades after Lebanon's independence from France in 1943.

During the civil war, the Phalange had the largest Christian militia that fought Muslim forces and Palestinian guerrillas. The death of the senior Pierre Gemayel in 1983, the shrinking Christian community and internal dissent have seriously weakened the party, which could not get its own leader elected to parliament in 2000.

With reports from The Associated Press and CTV's Middle East bureau chief Janis Mackey Frayer