DEADLY bombs have hit Christian areas of Damascus and Beirut,
producing further evidence that the crisis in Syria is inflaming
sectarian tensions in Lebanon.
On Sunday, 13 people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a
police station in the Old City of Damascus, a mainly Christian
neighbourhood, as President Assad met the Joint Special
Representative of the UN and the League of Arab States on the
Syrian crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi. The state news agency, SANA, said
that the blast was the work of an "armed terrorist group".
On Wednesday, Mr Brahimi said that the Syrian governent
had agreed, after the Damascus meeting, to a ceasefire during
the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which starts today. On Friday,
the UN special representative for children and armed conflict
expressed serious concern about the killing and maiming of
children, particularly by government forces.
On Friday, three people were killed and more than 80 were
injured when a car bomb exploded in the mainly Christian district
of Ashrafiya in Beirut. The explosion took place close to the
offices of the March 14 political group and those of the Christian
Phalange party, both critics of the Syrian regime. Among the dead
was Wissam al-Hassan, an intelligence official who led an
investigation that implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the
assassination of the former prime minister of Lebanon Rafik
al-Hariri in 2005. His son, Saad al-Hariri, also a former prime
minister of Lebanon, accused President Assad of being behind the
bombing.
Political groups in Lebanon are divided between support of, and
opposition to, the Syrian regime. The Christian community is also
divided, with some, including the Christian Phalange party,
supporting the March 14 Alliance, a coalition led by Saad
al-Hariri, which is opposed to the Syrian regime, and others
backing the Free Patriotic Movement, the main party of the March 8
Alliance, the ruling coalition, which also includes Hezbollah. On
Saturday, Nadim Gemayel, of the Christian Phalange party, accused
the Syrian regime of "trying to export its conflict to
Lebanon".
On Thursday, the Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo, the Rt Revd Antoine
Audo, told MPs that the situation in Syria for Christians was
"uniquely serious". In Homs, "All but a few of the Christians were
forced to leave because of threat of desecration," he told a
meeting organised by Aid to the Church in Need. The decline of
Christianity in Syria would be a "catastrophe" for the worldwide
Church, "because Christians in Syria are the direct predecessors of
the apostles. . . If Christians in my country were reduced to a
token few, it would be disastrous, because, until now, ours has
been one of the last remaining Christian countries in the whole of
the Middle East."
On Tuesday, the Vatican said that it was postponing the
departure of a Roman Catholic delegation to Syria, owing to the
"gravity of the situation".