Posted on 05/28/2005 7:50:42 PM PDT by TexKat
(AFP)
29 May 2005
BEIRUT - Lebanon’s first general elections free of Syrian presence in three decades kick off in Beirut on Sunday, with the anti-Damascus opposition set to win a majority of seats in the new parliament.
Nineteen seats are in theory up for grabs in the capital, but nine candidates on the lists of the murdered ex-premier Rafiq Hariri’s son Saad have already been elected by default after rival candidates failed to appear or dropped out.
Saad’s lists are widely expected to win all 10 other seats in Beirut and experts believe that this situation will keep turnout in Beirut lower than in the last legislative elections in 2000, which stood at 33.8 percent.
The vote marks only the start of four-stage nationwide polls, which will see different regions voting on every Sunday until the end of June.
Despite the crucial importance of the polls, being held under international supervision for the first time, there has been little sign of an intense battle as many of Syria’s once-powerful allies have thrown in the towel and the opposition is widely expected to win the lion’s share of seats in parliament.
But that victory may be dented by cracks emerging between opposition forces that had gained a powerful new voice after Hariri’s assassination.
Throughout the country, a total of 17 candidates have been automatically elected by default, including prominent opposition leader Druze MP Walid Jumblatt and close ally MP Marwan Hamadeh who has accused the Lebanese-Syrian security services of an attempt against his life in October.
The four-stage polls are the first since Syria last month ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon, which began in the early days of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.
The pullout came after massive protests and international pressure triggered by the killing of ex-premier Hariri—credited for Lebanon’s post-war rebuilding—which was widely blamed on the Lebanese regime and political masters in Damascus.
Damascus was the key powerbroker both on the ground in Lebanon and in the corridors of power, a role which ensured the pro-Syrian camp triumphed in the three legislative elections held since the 15-year conflict ended.
Lebanon has some three million voters, 59 percent Muslim and 41 percent Christian, who will be contesting 128 parliamentary seats to be shared equally by the Christian and Muslim communities.
Parliament is elected for four years.
About 420,630 voters, who must be aged over 21, can make their choice in 780 polling stations in the capital’s three constituencies where booths will open from 7:00 am (0400 GMT) until 6:00 pm (1500 GMT).
PIJ goals were "to rid Palestine of Jews" and "make sure there was no peace till that was done"
"...( Counter terrorism expert Steven) Emerson cited University of South Florida professor Al-Arian. Al-Arian came to the U.S. in 1979 and started at least in 1984 the beginning of the conspiracy to carry out Jihad. A key Islamic figure in the United States, who used the United States to acquire political influence power, Al-Arian headed an academic institute and organized charities, which provided perfect cover. Al-Arian use of a university setting and a political cause is typical of Jihadist organization, Emerson explained, and allows them to operate "under the radar" of U.S. law enforcement..."http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/Program%20Briefs/PBrief%202003/030303terror.htm
MIM: Sami Al Arian's wife, (who inexplicably remains unindicted) was listed as a director on the incorporation papers of the World Islamic Studies Enterprise (WISE) which was the 'think tank' front for Islamic Jihad.In 1999 she brazenly wrote a letter to the Tampa Tribune insisting certain publications had nothing to do with PIJ. Besides the two think tanks which served as a front for Islamic Jihad (ICP and WISE) Al Arian opened several companies in Florida . (see documentation below).
May29, 2005
Adventurer Susan Meckley (ussvdharma.net), a 72-year-old grandmother, is currently on a solo expedition aboard her sailing vessel USSV Dharma.
At last report she was nearing Hilo, Hawaii.
Amazingly, Art Bell was able to make radio contact with Susan (W7KFI/MM), who was using only a 40-watt Ham Radio. Click here to listen to their conversation.
Posted online: Sunday, May 29, 2005 12:16 AM CDT
CEDAR RAPIDS (AP) — U.S. Attorney Charles Larson Sr. returned from Iraq where he helped build the nation's court system.
Larson, who turns 70 on Monday, was welcomed home Friday by family, friends and staff. He said it was good to be home and expressed confidence the U.S. mission in Iraq will be successful.
Larson arrived in Baghdad on July 20. He served as a senior Justice Department adviser. He faces a possible short-term return to Iraq.
He said he's confident Iraq's new government will take root and grow, but said it will take time.
The new government is mindful of the various factions in Iraq and wants to include them all.
"U.S. troops are loyal and brave ... and are able to fulfill their missions under arduous conditions. The Iraqis have a great desire to take advantage of this opportunity to develop democracy. Their bravery is great too. I expect good things to come out of the country as time goes on," he said.
Larson oversaw training of Iraqi correctional officers and worked with judges. Iraq uses an accusatory European system in which three judges serve as investigator and juror and imposes sentences.
He said Iraqi courts, which operate faster than those in the United States, have improved in handling insurgents. At first, the courts were too lenient, handing out light sentences, but that has changed and now insurgents are being sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison, Larson said.
Larson said he plans to return to his office on Tuesday. His son, Chuck Larson Jr., a Republican state senator, recently returned from military duty in Iraq.
Go granny go!!
The 911 members of the 2005 graduating class at the United States Military Academy throw their hats in the air after being dismissed as Army 2nd Lieutenants on Saturday, May 28, 2005 at West Point, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jim McKnight)
A 'special class' prepares for war
By Greg C. Bruno Times Herald-Record gbruno@th-record.com
West Point – Four years after terrorists struck, the "Class of 9/11" is headed for war. The attacks of Sept. 11 "changed the entire world," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told more than 900 U.S. Military Academy cadets in his keynote address here yesterday.
"I'm also sure those events shaped every day of your past four years and gave you a clear sense of purpose and a heightened sense of resolve."
As many as seven in 10 graduates from the Class of 2005 – nicknamed the "Class of 9/11" because they arrived here just weeks before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – are expected to be serving in a combat unit in Iraq or Afghanistan within a year.
Ironically, 911 men and women were commissioned as officers during the two-hour ceremony.
While many graduates said they had chosen West Point for academic reasons before Sept. 11, all said they were prepared for the mission ahead.
Terrorism only strengthens their resolve. "I came for an education," said Bryon Vincent, 23, of Houston. "But there's a saying at West Point: People come for their own reasons and stay for the right ones." By December, he said, he'll be in Iraq.
After the ceremony at Michie Stadium, packed with flag-waving families and picture-snapping relatives, newly commissioned officers breathed a collective sign of relief. Some said they had been looking forward to raising their right hands and tossing their caps in the air since the day they arrived on post.
"I feel good; it's been a long time," said Adam Baur, 21, of El Paso, Texas, as he bolted from the throng of classmates in search of his family. "I never thought this day would come." Others could hardly contain their emotion, knowing their West Point career was finally over.
"The hardest part is just dealing with everything day in and day out – the rules, the regulations," said Nicholas Martin, 26, of Columbus, Ga., tears welling in his eyes. Graduating is just "a sense of accomplishment," because there were times when "you feel like it's never going to end."
But while the trial may be finished, Myers warned the Army's newest officers their true test was yet to come. "As you are committed today, one thing we do know: Much will be asked of you in the coming years. "But we also know that you are ready," he said.
He added: "You're a special class, one of the few since the early days of the Vietnam War who came to West Point in peace time, saw the nation transition to war, and chose to stay knowing you would raise your right hand, take an oath, and swear to defend the constitution of a nation that was still at war."
Whether relatives of yesterday's graduates are ready for what comes next is another question. Vincent said his parents were having a hard time with his pending deployment. "They obviously don't want me to go to Iraq," he said. "But they know what we're doing is the right thing, and they've been very supportive of me this whole time." Maureen Rumaczyk of Sparkill, who was on hand to cheer for her niece, Mary Eileen Stiffe, put it another way. "Many of them will be deployed to Iraq," Rumaczyk said. "I guess reality is going to set in today."
By Claude Salhani
Rumors are flying around the Iraqi battle zones that Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi has been severely wounded and could possibly be dead. An Islamic Web site has asked his followers to pray for his recovery.
While the U.S. military, no doubt, would very much like to nab the elusive insurrectionist, in truth his capture or killing would not alter much the reality on the ground as far as the insurgency is concerned.
The resistance targeting U.S. troops, as well as Iraqi civilians and units of the rebuilt Iraqi security services, appears to be a well-oiled machine, with ample supply of men and intelligence.
By Oliver North
FALLUJAH, Iraq.
For three weeks, my FOX News team has been immersed in little more than what has been happening around us. Memorial Day isn't, as they say over here, "on our radar screens." The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines we've been covering and living with in Al Anbar Province have been focused on chasing terrorists, avoiding improvised explosive devices and staying alive.
They call it "situational awareness" -- being alert to only the friendly and enemy situation in the immediate vicinity -- an absolute necessity for these young Americans in harm's way in this hot, dusty and dangerous place. And because these troops believe what they are doing is important to their families and country, it's a good thing they can't see what passes for "news" back in the States.
Earlier this week, we arrived at "TQ" -- once one of Saddam's Air Force bases -- now a major U.S. logistics installation between Fallujah and Baghdad. While we waited in a sweltering concrete hangar for a helicopter flight to Baghdad, one of the Marines offered the use of his "office" -- a plywood enclosure inside the revetment -- so we could charge the batteries on our equipment. Unfortunately, he also had recent editions of several U.S. newspapers and magazines -- and a television. We made the mistake of reading the papers and turning on the TV.
A view of the market damaged by bomb blasts in the town of Tentena, on the eastern Indonesian island of Sulawesi, May 28, 2005. Two bombs ripped through a busy market on Saturday killing up to 21 people in an attack likely to raise fears sectarian bloodshed could again break out in the region. Photo by Stringer/Indonesia/Reuters
Indonesia steps up hunt for market bombers
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia held a crisis meeting on Sunday in the wake of bomb attacks that killed 22 people in a Christian town, as the president said he would cut short an overseas trip if authorities could not handle the situation.
The explosions ripped through a busy market in the lakeside town of Tentena on Saturday, part of an eastern region where three years of Muslim-Christian fighting killed 2,000 people until a peace deal was agreed in late 2001.
Periodic unrest has flared since, but Saturday's two bomb attacks were among the worst and raises fears sectarian strife will reignite.
Chief security minister Widodo Adi Sutjipto told reporters after the ministerial crisis meeting that the government would step up intelligence operations.
"There must be significant steps taken to uncover this terror network, including by seeking more information from captured perpetrators," Widodo said, referring to detainees held over past attacks.
The government will also step up security in other parts of the country after the attacks, he added.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would not speculate on who carried out the attacks in Tentena.
"I have spoken to the vice president and the chief security minister. If this problem cannot be dealt with, I will return to the country," Yudhoyono was quoted as saying by the official Antara news agency after arriving in Hanoi late on Saturday.
"I have instructed the authorities to catch the perpetrators."
Yudhoyono had just touched down after visiting the United States. From Vietnam, the former general will travel to Japan.
One of the aims of his trip is to convince foreign investors that Indonesia is a safe and easier place to do business, after years of ineffective government and occasional major bombings by Jemaah Islamiah, a militant group linked to al Qaeda.
No officials have blamed Jemaah Islamiah for the attacks in the picturesque lakeside town on Sulawesi island, 1,500 km (900 miles) northeast of Jakarta. Members of the shadowy network took part in the 1999-2001 bloodshed in the eastern region.
More than 30 people were wounded in the twin attacks which occurred within 15 minutes of each other.
Some 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim. But in some eastern parts, Christian and Muslim populations are about equal in size.
Tentena lies 40 km (25 miles) to the south of Poso, where much of the 1999-2001 violence was focused.
Saturday's blasts follow Western government warnings about terrorist attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
On Thursday, the United States closed all of its four diplomatic missions in Indonesia because of a security threat.
Yudhoyono said he did not see any connection to that decision and the bombings, Antara reported.
Attacks against Western targets and blamed on Jemaah Islamiah include blasts at Bali nightclubs in October 2002 that killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, and one last September outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed 10.
Besides the Poso region, the Moluccas islands further to the east were also the scene of vicious communal fighting between Muslims and Christians from 1999 to 2002 that left more than 5,000 dead. A peace agreement was reached there in early 2002.
QUETTA, Pakistan - A bomb exploded near a police station and assailants fired rockets at paramilitary troops in attacks in southwestern Pakistan, police said Sunday. No injuries were reported.
The bomb shattered windows Saturday night at the police station in Mach, a town near Quetta, capital of the restive Baluchistan province, according to a provincial police chief. In two other attacks the same night, assailants fired rockets at paramilitary troop in the towns of Mand and Kohlu, but the rockets missed.
Mir Azad Baluch, a man claiming to speak for the Baluchistan Liberation Army, claimed responsibility for the two rocket attacks. The group has claimed responsibility for previous attacks in the southwestern province.
Baluchistan has been the scene of small-scale bombings and rocket attacks in recent months. The violence is blamed on local tribesmen who are suspected of using attacks to push the government for more royalties from natural gas and other resources taken from the province.
The attacks came a day after a suicide bomber struck at a Muslim shrine near the diplomatic enclave in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, killing at least 20 Muslim worshippers. Police are trying to determine the identity of the suicide bomber. There was no indication that violence and Saturday's attacks in Baluchistan were related.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says Iran is very anxious to obtain a nuclear bomb(AFP/File/Jewel Samad)
Iran very anxious to get nuclear bomb, says Musharraf
Sat May 28, 3:55 PM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - Iran is very anxious to obtain a nuclear bomb, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview published here, while stating his opposition to any preventive attack on the fellow-Muslim nation.
Asked by Germany's Der Spiegel weekly how to prevent Iran from developing a military nuclear program, Musharraf said: "I do not know. They are very anxious to have the bomb."
But a preventive war against Tehran would lead to "a disaster considering the current state of the world," the Pakistani leader said on Saturday.
"It would provoke a rebellion in the Muslim world. Why open up new fronts?" he was quoted by the weekly as saying.
Musharraf insisted that Pakistan, which already has nuclear weapons, was against proliferation.
Unlike Pakistan, which said it developed its offensive nuclear program because it shares a border with nuclear-armed archrival India, "Iran does not have common borders with Israel," he said.
"We were really threatened," Musharraf added.
On Friday, a key UN conference failed to adopt new measures to stem proliferation, with the United States insisting on dealing with Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs while Iran demanded that its right to peaceful atomic activities be recognized.
Iran recently said it planned to resume its uranium enrichment program, despite an undertaking it gave to European Union countries to suspend it.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
By Henry Meyer / Associated Press
MOSCOW -- Entire neighborhoods were plunged into darkness. Thousands of subway passengers were stranded.
A power outage caused chaos in Moscow this week, and a rebel-linked Web site now says Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev was behind it all.
Russian officials insist worn-out equipment caused the power failure, which began with an explosion and fire at a 40-year-old substation and affected the Russian capital and surrounding region. But Basayev has a history of striking at new and spectacular targets in his terrorist campaign.
"Our sabotage units delivered a major blow to one of the most important life-support systems of the Russian empire," the Kavkazcenter Web site on Friday quoted the Chechen rebel leader as saying in an e-mail.
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, declined comment on the claim, and telephone calls to the Industry and Energy Ministry were not answered.
But Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko was quoted earlier in the day as rejecting speculation that a terrorist act was responsible for Wednesday's blackout.
"I think that this is not a terrorist act. We are just using old equipment, from 1958, which needs to be replaced," Khristenko told the RIA-Novosti news agency, the Gazeta.ru news Web site reported.
The conflicting claims recalled the aftermath of the blackout in eight U.S. states and Canada in August 2003. Although a shadowy group calling itself the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades claimed responsibility, investigators quickly ruled out any sabotage.
Basayev is Russia's most wanted man, and is seen as the driving force behind the decade-old insurgency in the breakaway republic of Chechnya since Russian security forces killed guerrilla leader Aslan Maskhadov on March 8.
Basayev has claimed responsibility for many of Russia's most grisly terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Moscow theater hostage-taking and last September's school siege in southern Russia, in which more than 330 people died -- half of them children.
The blackout happened during an unseasonable heat wave, with temperatures reaching 86. The shutdown of subways and trolley buses forced tens of thousands of people to reach their destinations on foot, jamming sidewalks.
According to media reports, the power failure caused some apartment buildings to lose their water supply, forced suspension of trading on both of Moscow's stock exchanges and caused an explosion at a chemical factory in the Tula region, sending nitric oxide into the air.
The head of the nation's electricity monopoly, Anatoly Chubais, has borne the brunt of criticism over the power outage. Moscow prosecutors interrogated Chubais, head of Unified Energy Systems, about the blackout for several hours Thursday as a witness in a criminal case into alleged negligence.
Basayev purportedly dismissed the notion of outdated equipment causing the blackout.
"The Russian authorities are willfully lying, hiding the real reason for the 'technological catastrophe,' as well as trying to cover up the very serious consequences of this special operation we carried out," Basayev said according to the Web site, which he has used in the past to claim responsibility for terrorist acts.
Alexei Malashenko, an expert on Chechnya at the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank, said Basayev may be lying but that he was probably capable of mounting an attack of this kind because of lax security around power facilities.
He noted that the rebel leader had threatened to target the Russian capital in the past.
"If Basayev did it, it would demonstrate the complete failure of the FSB and the Moscow and federal authorities" to protect Russian citizens from terrorist attacks, Malashenko said.
A senior Moscow-backed Chechen official, however, accused Basayev of seeking to raise his profile to get funding from international Islamic radicals.
"By making sensational statements that he has organized terrorist acts on the energy system, he is trying to get money from terrorists," Chechen State Council chairman Taus Dzhabrailov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Russia's atomic energy agency issued a statement Friday denying that malfunctions had occurred at any nuclear facility on Wednesday or the following days. The statement apparently came in response to rumors of an accident at a reactor in Obninsk, about 60 miles southwest of Moscow.
U.S. Marine killed in Iraqi homemade bomb blast
BAGHDAD, Iraq A U-S Marine was killed when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle in northwestern Iraq.
The military says the attack happened Saturday 85 miles northwest of Baghdad. The Marine was assigned to the Second Force Service Support Group, Second Marine Expeditionary Force.
As of Sunday, at least 16-hundred-56 U-S military members have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an AP count.
Assad's uncle calls for reform in Syria
SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI
Associated Press
Posted on Sun, May. 29, 2005
MARBELLA, Spain - His resemblance to his older brother, Syria's late President Hafez Assad is astounding. As a behind-the-scenes strongman and head of an elite military unit, he has been linked to a brutal repression of Islamic militants that reportedly left thousands dead.
Now, Rifaat Assad, who went into exile after a failed coup attempt in the mid-1980s, told The Associated Press that he wants to return home to remove the dictatorial regime led by his nephew and help bring democracy and economic prosperity - even though he claims he risks assassination.
"I have nothing but love for my nephew," he said during a more than four-hour interview Friday at his office in Marbella in southern Spain. "But I have condemned the way he rules."
The Syrian regime is under relentless U.S. pressure, with accusations that it is either aiding or not stopping foreign fighters from crossing its borders into Iraq.
"I noticed the country is being threatened from within and without," Assad said, seated at his desk with a huge Syrian flag behind him. "The country doesn't enjoy stability."
"It's America's right to defend its interests as it is natural for Syria to defend its interests. The affair must be resolved in a regional reconciliation," said Assad, whose country was a close ally of the former Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.
Assad, who had difficulty hearing well, insisted that he is not seeking to replace his 39-year-old nephew, who inherited the presidency from his late father five years ago. But his return would almost inevitably put more pressure on the Syrian leader, whom the U.S. is already pushing for serious change.
Rifaat Assad, 67, said that he wants to lead a peaceful movement for change in Syria.
He also said Syrians may be turning to Muslim fundamentalism because of the pressure, adding "that's what made me decide to go back."
He said Syria is being run by the police and the secret service who are stronger than the president. Bashar Assad "has left the country without leadership... No one knows who rules Syria," the former strongman said.
Assad indicated that he may be willing to meet with officials in the Bush administration to "benefit the American and Syrian people," although he said he has not been approached by any U.S. official.
Former CIA Middle East specialist Martha Kessler scoffed at the idea of Rifaat Assad trying to portray himself to the West as "Syria's Chalabi," referring to Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile who got U.S. support in his campaign against Saddam Hussein before falling out of favor with Washington and becoming a deputy prime minister in Iraq.
"If anybody's fallen for it, they're in big trouble," Kessler said, adding that Rifaat Assad was linked to atrocities in Syria and may no longer have much support there because he has been away so long and because his brother cracked down on his allies.
Human rights groups have accused the former strongman of leading crack army units in an assault that crushed an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood in the northern Syrian city of Hama. The death toll reportedly came to more than 20,000, though it was never officially disclosed.
"There is credible evidence linking Rifaat Assad to atrocities when he was a paramilitary commander in Syria," said Reed Brody, legal counsel for Human Rights Watch. "Rather than becoming a political leader, Rifaat Assad should be investigated."
Rifaat Assad denied the accusations, saying he had no idea how many were killed in the Hama crackdown, but said most of the dead were killed by Muslim Brotherhood forces. Others were killed by security forces defending themselves, he said.
"I never entered Hama," Assad said, adding that he was in the politburo leadership of the ruling Baath Party at the time and had no security responsibilities.
His 32-year-old son - one of his 16 children from different wives - attended the interview in Assad's expansive office which is one floor below his seaside residence. The family owns a Japanese restaurant by the Mediterranean, a short walk away from his office, as well as a hotel.
Rifaat Assad has spoken about returning before, but has not gone home. When his brother died, he claimed he should be Syria's next leader, but Syria's Baath party, the Assad clan and the all-important military closed ranks around Bashar Assad and Rifaat reportedly was threatened with arrest if he tried to enter his homeland.
But he may have been emboldened by a perception that Bashar Assad has been weakened in Syria by the humiliation of having to give into U.S. pressure and withdraw troops from Lebanon after massive protests sparked by the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Some hard-liners among the long-privileged ruling Alawites, the Islamic sect to which the Assads belong, are beginning to grumble privately that Bashar Assad is too weak. They see Bashar Assad's decision to withdraw Syrian troops from Lebanon as capitulation, and may hope Rifaat Assad would be able to keep them in their privileged positions and satisfy the Americans at the same time.
Rifaat Assad, who spoke slowly and punctuated many of his points with a nervous laugh, said he had never supported Syrian meddling in Lebanon.
"I am returning to join the ranks of the people suffering from an unprecedented poverty, ... corruption and anarchy," he said, although he gave no specifics about when and how he would return and claimed he risked assassination if he tried to go back now.
Assad said he had approached the regime about his decision but had been rebuffed.
He said he will first give the Syrian regime a chance to change the constitution, hold fair elections, allow pluralism, free press, respect human rights and rights of women, fight corruption, reform the judiciary, and not allow foreign interference in the country's internal affairs.
If the government does not reform, he said, he will call on the Syrian people to remove the government.
Rifaat Assad also said he was for peace between Syria and Israel, while stressing that such a goal was not as high a priority as political and economic reform.
In 1983, as Hafez Assad lay in a hospital recuperating from a heart attack, Rifaat's tanks began maneuvering on the streets of Damascus in moves that were seen as an attempted coup. In the interview, he denied he had attempted a coup. But Rifaat Assad was banished and stripped of all official posts. His elite army unit 569 was disbanded. He has lived in Marbella off and on ever since.
---
Associated Press correspondent Daniel Woolls contributed to this report.
Good night Gucho.
He advises voters to avoid inertia
By Reuters | May 29, 2005
BEIRUT -- Although all but sure of victory, the son of Rafik al-Hariri, the slain former prime minister, urged voters in Beirut to turn out in droves in today's parliamentary polls, the first in three decades with no Syrian troops in Lebanon.
Saad Hariri, Rafik's political heir, heads a bloc contesting the capital's 19 seats in the first round of the polls, spread regionally over four weekends.
Nine of the Sunni Muslim leader's candidates have clinched their seats for lack of challengers in Beirut, where there has been little campaigning and no electoral suspense.
But Hariri, a 35-year-old businessman, warned his supporters yesterday not to be complacent.
''There are those who bet that voter turnout will be low today and that the battle is determined and there is no need to go to the ballot boxes," he said.
''We have all to prove our loyalty to martyr Rafik al-Hariri and vote heavily to stop any opposing candidate from winning."
A handful of pro-Syrian leftists and Muslim militants are competing with Hariri's Future bloc in mainly Sunni Muslim Beirut, where about 400,000 people are eligible to vote.
But the wave of sympathy and anger evoked by Hariri's Feb. 14 killing means any challenger faces an uphill struggle.
The interior minister promised to ensure an impartial vote and said a hot line had been set up to receive complaints.
''We will hold free and fair elections with full neutrality from the government so citizens can choose their representatives in the next parliament with full freedom without pressure from any side," Hassan al-Sabaa told reporters.
In one sense the polls mark a new era for Lebanon, a month after Syrian troops bowed to international pressure and withdrew following protests that united Muslims and Christians in Beirut.
But the euphoria has faded as old-style electoral horse-trading and alliances among Lebanon's political leaders have effectively curtailed voter choice.
A total of 17 seats, including the nine in Beirut and six in the south, have gone by default without a vote cast.
The elections, starting just before parliament's term expires, will return many of the same faces to the 128-member assembly, but Syria will no longer be the sole arbiter of Lebanese politics as it had been since the 1975-90 civil war.
We got to keep a "eye" on Assad ... That could pop anytime .
May 29, 2005 latimes.com : World
By Carol J. Williams, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD — As thousands of newly minted police officers in mismatched uniforms moved Saturday to cinch a security chokehold around this Iraqi capital, insurgents continued to lash out across the rest of the country.
Nearly 40 people were killed in 24 hours in a rash of suicide bombings, assassinations and ambushes, from the northern city of Sinjar to the western border with Syria and the town of Hillah south of Baghdad. Even with the capital cordoned off, militants managed to lob four mortar rounds into a factory on the outskirts, killing a watchman.
The Iraqi government's "Operation Lightning," announced two days in advance by the defense and interior ministers, will deploy 40,000 police officers and national guardsmen in the first major Iraqi-led offensive against an insurgency that has killed nearly 700 Iraqis in the weeks since Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and his Cabinet were sworn in May 3.
That concentration of forces represents at least a fourth of all Iraqi security personnel, raising concern among some in this violence-plagued country that the architects of the massive sweep of the capital have left the rest of Iraq unprotected.
"Every time they start an operation in one region, they forget about the others, so the terrorists run to the exposed places," said Ammar Khazal, 33, who owns a clothing shop. He lamented the announcement Thursday of the operation, giving insurgents a two-day window to slip out of Baghdad.
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