According to a book published by German journalist Jurgen Cain Kulbel, the United States and Israel could be linked to the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri

The direct implication of the United States as well as Israel in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is a strong possibility. The uprising of anti-Syrian Lebanese, which accelerated the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after a twenty-year presence, serves above all to advance the strategic interests of these two eternal allies. In any case, so affirms Jurgen Cain Kulbel, a German journalist, in his recently published book.

Titled Mordakte Hariri. Unterdruckte Spuren im Libanon (The Hariri File: Silenced Evidence in Lebanon), the book severely criticises the undertakings of the UN investigation.

In his book, this independent journalist reproaches the Mission for focusing only on the Syrian hypothesis at the expense of other possible scenarios.

"There are other possibilities: they begin at the Lebanese civil war and finish in Washington, New York, and Jerusalem", he affirms. The author denounces "an ignoble plan": "the assassination of 'Mr Lebanon' (Hariri) was meant to be forever engraved in the minds of the Lebanese to make them the instruments of what would become the Cedar Revolution," he writes.

This pamphlet contains several crushing revelations for the UN Mission. He affirms, among other things, that the principal witnesses became millionaires after having made depositions that accuse the Syrian secret service. He adds that one of them "mysteriously disappeared in an accident, and that DNA traces of the 'so-called kamikaze' were never found on the site of the explosion in the centre of Beirut."

Jurgen Cain Kulbel doesn't directly accuse Washington and Tel Aviv of being behind the assassination, but he brings forward elements and documents that go in this direction.

For example, Jurgen Kulbel notes that the former Lebanese minister was included on a death list on the site of the "United States Committee for a Free Lebanon" up until his death. It is the site of the Lebanese "lobby" in the United States close to the neo-conservative milieu.

And in citing the American investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, the book reminds us that the former prime minister opposed the project for the construction of an important American military base in the north of Lebanon.

Among the people cited by the German journalist figures Moustafa Al-Nasser, a former advisor to Mr. Hariri, who said "The assassination of Hariri is the work of the Israeli secret services, Mossad, whose goal was to create political tensions in Lebanon."

But the major revelation in the book is the following: the static emitters of Mr Hariri's convoy, normally capable of preventing the activation of bombs at a distance, "totally failed". The journalist affirms, citing a Swiss expert, that the system could only be neutralized by its maker, which happens to be none other than an Israeli company founded by ex-Mossad agents.

Washington's determination to overthrow Damascus isn't new. According to a document that goes back to the fall of 1957, the existence of which was revealed by The Guardian in September 2005, the Central Intelligence Agency and its British homologue had already at that time agreed to put an end to the Syrian regime in making people believe that Damascus was the originator of plots and sabotage against neighbouring governments. According to the elements in Jurgen Kulbel's book, the assassination of Rafik Hariri could well be an American manoeuvre designed to destabilise the regime in Damascus.

Translation by Signs of the Times

For more on the assassination of Rafik Hariri, see: "Mossad Murders Former Lebanese PM in Carbon Copy of 1979 Assassination"