Damascus - Syria condemned the killing of a senior Lebanese army officer in a blast in eastern Beirut on Wednesday and hinted that Israel may have been behind the attack, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA. Army Brigadier General Francois al-Hajj was killed in the rush hour blast in front of a municipal government building near the presidential palace in the Christian area of Baabda, a security official who requested anonymity said.
"The Syrian government sends its deepest condolence to the Lebanese army, its command and the family of al-Hajj," SANA said.
The agency quoted an official media source as saying Damascus condemned the killing, which "targets Lebanon's military establishment with its anti-Israeli beliefs."
Israel and its allies in Lebanon stood to benefit from the crime through the killing of a national Lebanese figure, who held the Lebanese army's belief, supported the resistance (against Israel), worked for a united Lebanon and rejected its division, the source said.
He noted that Syria held the Lebanese military establishment in high esteem and said the army had good relations with Lebanon's powers.
SANA alleged that Israel had blown up al-Hajj's car in south of Lebanon in 1976 after he refused to cooperate with a pro-Israeli militia there.
Israel also threatened al-Hajj during the war on Lebanon in 2006, the news agency claimed.
An army source said al-Hajj was a candidate to replace Army Commander General Michel Suleiman, whom the ruling coalition and opposition have chosen as Lebanon's next president.
Al-Hajj had led the more than three-month-long military operation in northern Lebanon during the summer that pitted the Lebanese Army against the Muslim fundamentalist movement Fatah al-Islam, the military source said.
He also led the Lebanese army during its deployment in southern Lebanon, alongside the beefed-up United Nations peacekeeping force UNIFIL following the 33-day Israeli war on Lebanon, in accordance with UN resolution 1701 which imposed a ceasefire after the war.
Syria had a deeply entrenched involvement in Lebanon that had started in June 1976, when its troops went into the civil-war ravaged country at the invitation of the then president Suleiman Franjieh, who was a Maronite Christian.
The assassination of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, led to the withdrawal of Syria's troops from the country in April 2005, thus ending its 30-year presence.
Syria, however, still has allies in its southern neighbour, mainly the Shiite group Hezbollah, which is believed to be funded by Iran.
The failure by Lebanese powers to elect a president is one of the dimensions of the current deadlock between the country's pro-Western majority alliance and the largely pro-Syrian opposition, of which Hezbollah is a key member.
