'Commander Hariri, wounded on the battlefront of Megeve!'
[Telegraph] "... Rabih Baaklini, 30, a Christian, said that he came under fire when his car was stopped at a militia checkpoint: "As we tried to pass, masked gunmen leapt out around the car. I panicked and tried to flatten the accelerator, but hit the brake instead. We all dived to the car floor as the men shot at us. A bullet scraped my jeans and landed in the gearbox. They pumped 16 bullets into the car. It's a miracle we survived."Mr Baaklini added: "I am Christian, but the neighbourhood I am from has Shia in it. I heard them talking among themselves over my ID, saying that I was Shia."Other residents in Beirut reported seeing militia checkpoints. "They were so aggressive. My friends had to prove they are Sunnis so that they would let us pass," said a French resident who encountered a checkpoint in south Beirut with her car full of Lebanese friends. "It is as though Lebanon suffers from a reflex: whenever there is trouble, revert to the sectarian behaviour of the civil war in the 1980s."...After his ordeal on Sunday night, Mr Baaklini drove to an army checkpoint only 200 metres from where the militiamen had opened fire on his car. They said they could do nothing. “I told the soldier I would leave the country! The soldier said that if he had the means, he would too,” said Mr Baaklini."
No comments:
Post a Comment