Targeting the BCD

The Lebanese have to be very careful and wise in dealing with the attacks that shook the Beirut Central District.

If you’re an “external destabilizing party” and you want to provoke a Sunni-Shia rift in Lebanon, what better way can you think of than sending a bunch of troublemakers to bomb a neighborhood associated with the Sunni Hariri’s rebuilding efforts, using weapons that are commonly available to Hezbollah fighters?

But that was precisely what happened this dawn when a group of armed men fired three rockets onto a building in the Beirut Central District, an Icon of the March 14 elite. Fortunately, only a few people were hurt and the rest was material damage, but who did it and why?

To be sure, the explosions are part of a general trend of security disruption. But this particular incident has a lot of significance.

It happened the same day Michel Aoun, a Christian opposition leader, was planning to make a fiery speech demanding the government’s resignation in front of thousands of supporters (the event was cancelled because of bad weather).

The instigator could have calculated that the Sunnis would be in no mood to hear their beloved Prime Minister bashed from the same person who dismissed Hariri’s tribunal as a waste of time. Let alone if that happens the same day their cherished central district was bombed with weapons similar to those at the disposal of Hezbollah, who is also allied with Aoun.

Another clue is the proximity of the attack to the UN headquarters in Beirut (a direction the Lebanese government is emphasizing to reduce talk of the first possibility.)
The UN has enemies in the region because of two things: One is the UN investigation into Hariri’s murder that could point fingers to powerful regional parties. The other, more recent factor is UNIFIL 2’s presence in the South, which is straining the movement of Hezbollah.
In this light, the attacks can be seen as a warning to the United Nations not to meddle too much.

It is yet too early to know exactly who is causing these attacks, but the Lebanese have to be very careful to avoid playing right into the hands of the people who want them the least good.