Losing the cause

Do not isolate the Shias because of Hizbullah. Not all support the party and many would stop supporting the party given a chance to do so. I have actively advocated this idea for a long time now, and I am glad to see this is the message Walid Jumblatt sent in one of his recent editorials for Al Anbaa.

Hizballah will always have a core of passionate supporters. However, I have seen no serious attempt to work with those who feel compelled (for financial reasons) to follow Hizbullah and take them away from the party.

An important development, if true, is the revelation of the Syrian Al-Hakika daily that Mugniyeh's body has been taken out of Damascus at the direct request of Sheikh Nasrallah, before the Syrian investigation into the assassination.

The presidential 'consensual candidate'

Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian Vice President, who lives in France claims that President Assad put his brother in law, Maj General Assef Shawkat, head of the military intelligence, under house arrest. Apparently, Shawkat was on the Bashar Assad's black list since 2005 - the same year that Rafiq Hariri was killed. More recently, Mugniyeh was assassinated and it seems impossible to believe that it was done without some help from the Syrians. Now Khaddam claims that the "Syrian regime had attempted to assassinate Mugniyeh through Gen Ali Mamlouk, head of Syria's General Intelligence Department, who was personally tasked with this mission."

Daniel Bellemare, head of the UN probe into the assassination of former Premier Rafiq Hariri will brief the Security Council on April 8. Thus far he's said very little about his work and spoke of a network that carried out the assassination and is likely to be involved in other assassinations. I particularly liked what Prof. Chibli Mallat -a human rights lawyer, Islamic law scholar and presidential candidate - has said about the investigation.