*“I voted for Hezbollah and Amal because they protect us and stand in the face of the Israelis and Americans,” Hussein Awada told Reuters news agency, in the city of Tyre. *
*''Only the resistance freed us from Israel," said Samira Mezher in the town of Nabatiyeh. *
"I am voting for them because without them we are worthless."
**Lebanon votes in landmark poll **
Polls have closed in southern Lebanon, the second of the country’s regions to hold landmark parliamentary elections
Islamic guerrilla movement Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies are expected to sweep to victory in the region.
The elections are the first in 30 years to be held without the presence of Syrian troops, which withdrew from Lebanon in April.
Last Sunday, anti-Syrian candidates won all 19 seats in elections in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Correspondents say turnout among the more than 650,000 eligible voters in southern Lebanon was low, with a higher number of voters in Shia Muslim towns than in Christian areas, where a boycott seems to have taken effect.
Syria accused after bomb kills journalist Kassir
Lebanese opposition blames Damascus and calls for Lahoud to resign over death of anti-Syrian writer
By Nayla Assaf
Daily Star staff
Friday, June 03, 2005
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s opposition blamed “Syria and its allies” for the killing of Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, one of the Assad regime’s most vocal critics who was murdered in a car bomb while leaving his home. The United States also condemned Kassir’s assassination and hinted Syrian involvement. U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman said: “We look at what he has been writing for years on the front page of An-Nahar and we know who his enemies must be.”
The assassination comes in the middle of Lebanon’s first parliamentary elections being held free of Syrian control in almost 30 years, and only one month after Syria, under pressure form the international community, withdrew its troops from the country.
Security sources said Kassir was killed shortly before 11:00 a.m. when his light grey Alfa Romeo exploded seconds after he got into the car.
The sources estimate that half a kilogram of TNT had been planted under Kassir’s car seat. They also said the explosion was triggered by remote control.
Kassir’s body lay slumped to one side inside the blasted car wreck. Kassir, 45, wrote a regular front-page column in Lebanon’s leading An-Nahar newspaper known for its anti-Syrian stance.
He has also published four books, two of which criticize Syria’s role in Lebanon and the oppression of public freedoms in Damascus.
Aye it is. That is why the US never wanted democracy in the Islamic world. Democracy in the Islamic world means 1971 all over again. For the dumb read "oil crisis".
