Target Two civilian buses Perpetrators Fatah al-Islam Location Bikfaya, Lebanon Total number of deaths 3 | Non-fatal injuries 21 Date 13 February 2007 Perpetrator Fatah al-Islam Attack type Bomb | |
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The February 13, 2007 Lebanon bombings were two blasts on buses near Bikfaya, Lebanon which killed three and injured 21. The bombings heightened tensions in the country following the Cedar Revolution, and on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the assassination of Rafik Hariri.
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The bombings
On Tuesday, February 13, 2007, a bomb exploded on a bus transporting 26 people from Bteghrine to the Lebanese mountain village of Ain Alaq. A second bus following behind stopped, and then a bomb on that bus exploded. Killed were Michel Attar (born 1989), Laurice Gemayel, and Mahmoud Hammoud, an Egyptian laborer. A further 21 other people were injured.
The two bombings occurred on the eve of a Cedar Revolution rally planned to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. The bombing occurred less than a mile from the Christian village of Bikfaya, the hometown of the former president, Amin Gemayel, whose son Pierre Gemayel, a cabinet minister and member of the anti-Syrian, March 14 Alliance, was assassinated by gunmen in November. Amin Gemayel, also a member of the March 14 Alliance, had just returned from the United States where he met with president George W. Bush in the White House on February 08, 2007. In addition to scaring the Lebanese from attending the Cedar Revolution the following day, many analyst also saw the bombings in Gemayel's stronghold of Metn as a Syrian warning to Gemayel who was a possible candidate for the Lebanese presidency. The bombings did not deter hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese, Christians, Muslims, and Druze, to gather in Martyr’s Square in Beirut on February 14 to honor Hariri and show support for the anti-Syrian, pro-western government of Fouad Saniora.
Reactions
Arrests and Criminal Charges
On March 14, 2007, Lebanese Internal Security, better known as the Sûreté Générale du Liban, arrested four Syrians who confessed to the bombings in Ain Alaq. The Lebanese Interior Minister, Hassan Al Sabaa, believed that the four Syrians were members of a radical Palestinian group, Fatah al-Islam, which allegedly has close ties to the Syrian intelligence agency. However, it was still not clear who actually ordered the attack. Syria denied the Lebanese allegations.
On June 21, 2007, Lebanese State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza filed charges against 16 Fatah al-Islam suspects accused of carrying out the bombings. Nine of the 16 suspects accused were in custody when the charges were filed; other, including Fatah al-Islam head Shaker al-Abssi were still being sought. The defendants include 10 Syrians, two Lebanese, three Palestinians (including one woman) and one Saudi national.