Hariri: Attack on UNIFIL was a Message from Assad

Former Premier Saad Hariri said Friday’s attack on a UNIFIL patrol in the southern city of Tyre was “another Syrian message from (President) Bashar” Assad.

Five French peacekeepers were injured when a roadside bomb targeted their vehicle. The incident was seen as a message to Western countries, mainly France, over the pressure exerted on Assad.

“Being human is not a crime, you should try it once in a while, killing is not a solution it’s the problem,” Hariri said on twitter after he was asked about his support for the Syrian protestors seeking to topple Assad’s regime.

“Not because I speak about Syria means I am not following what’s happening in Lebanon, but I am allowed to have an opinion,” he said.

Hariri reiterated that the regime will collapse “sooner or later.”

“How can anyone stand with this regime in Syria?” he wondered. “History won't be kind to those who stood by this killing machine.”

On the efforts exerted by the March 8 forces to open the file of the so-called false witnesses in ex-PM Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination, he said: “Let them open anything they want and if they want to take me to court I will go but will they?”

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon has indicted four Hizbullah members. But Lebanese authorities have so far failed to arrest them.

Hariri’s tweet came after one follower asked him about the demands of Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to put the issue of false witnesses on the agenda of the cabinet and later refer it to the Higher Judicial Council.

False witnesses have reportedly misled investigators probing Rafik Hariri’s murder.