The Three faces of Wissam al-Hassan

There were three known faces of the slain Major General Wissam al-Hassan, chief of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces Intelligence (ISF) Bureau, , who was assassinated on Friday in a blast that took place in Beirut's Ashrafiyeh neighbourhood. It is essential to look well at each of his three faces before thinking about a potential list of suspects to blame for his assassination. The first face of Major General Wissam al-Hassan is the one of an official affiliated to the Future Bloc led by former prime minister Saad Hariri, and an active member in the so-called "The Arab Moderation Alliance". His most recognisable contribution was his long-standing resistance to the March 8 camp, Hezbollah, the Syrian regime and Iran. He culminated his efforts in that regard by arresting one of the most remarkable supporters of the Syrian regime amongst the Lebanese politicians: former minister Michel Samaha. He has also allegedly contributed in "re-directing" the activities of the Salafi groups in Lebanon to be mainly against the Syrian regime, in addition to another alleged role, which is facilitating the transfer of arms, money and fighters from Lebanon to the Syrian rebels. The second face is of a man who succeeded, along with his men in the ISF Intelligence Bureau, in discovering more than 30 Israeli spy networks during 2009 and 2010. This success granted him credibility and broad approbation from all the Lebanese political factions, including Hezbollah. But this approbation didn't last long because some theories came out to suggest that this success was only a trap prepared by Israel and the March 14 camp in order to facilitate Hassan's mission in proving Syria and Hezbollah's responsibility for the assassination of the late prime minister Rafik Hariri. That is why we can't refer to this second face without alluding to Hassan's role in the investigations held by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which is assigned of finding the truth behind Hariri's assassination. His role in this tribunal was described by his rivals as "biased and offensive". The third face is of a man who led the bureau which carried out numerous haunt and arrest campaigns against members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jihadist groups in Lebanon. He was also tipped to take over as ISF head at the end of this year. It is well known that the ISF has technological, financial and human resources not available for any other organisations in Lebanon, and Hassan has proven efficienct in getting advantage of these resources whenever and wherever he wants. By looking at those three faces of Major General Hassan, we can refer to three potential suspects in particular to be behind his assassination: The Syrian regime, either solely or with help of its allies in Lebanon... The Israeli intelligence... Al-Qaeda or one of their off-shots, who are known to never giving up on retaliations. However, having three suspects for this crime means that Lebanon is going to see a similar debate to the ones seen before after the assassination of several Lebanese politicians, journalists and officials. In Lebanon you can anticipate all the stances, reactions and accusations which will take place after each incident even before the incident happens, and the Lebanese have kept their habit after Hassan's assassination. We saw a camp quickly pointing fingers at the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies in Lebanon as the undoubted perpetrators. They based their accusation on Assad's promise to set the entire region on fire if the fire in his country is to remain blowing. Another camp has immediately blamed Israel, as the "it is the only party that would benefit from inciting turmoil and rifts in Lebanon". A third camp called for patience before directing accusations and to wait for the official investigations to discover the culprits. It could be understood that members of the third camp are alluding that those of the two other camps are trying to "politicise" the incident for pre-intended goals, yet the problem of the members of this third camp is that they can't convince anybody that the investigations will eventually reach any concrete results, because this was not the case in dozens of previous crimes, and there is no guarantee that the same thing wouldn't happen again with assassination of Major General Wissam al-Hassan. Regardless of who was behind Hassan's assassination, it is certain that this incident will push the recent sectarian tension in Lebanon to a further level, may be to the level where the tension will explode and turn into street fights. The Syrian crisis has already spilled over into Lebanon, and what was scaring the Lebanese in their nightmares is about to be a fearful reality in their towns and neighbourhoods. We have to wait a little to know the reflections of the "crime of Ashrafiyeh" on the 19-month long Syrian crisis. Would the "international community" decide to punish Assad's regime for this crime, regardless of whether he is the culprit or not? Or will they fear for a regional fire that "will eat everything and everybody" in the region as the UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was quoted as saying, and this fear will make them prefer a political solution to contain the crisis, which should begin with accepting a ceasefire truce during the Muslims' religious feast, Eid al-Adha as proposed by Brahimi himself?           -- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.