Ghazi Zeaiter demands investigation into Baalbeck clashes

MP Ghazi Zeaiter held a press conference Thursday to protest against an operation carried out by the Lebanese Army the previous day in the Sharahouneh neighborhood of Baalbeck, which resulted in the death of three major drug traffickers.

"I conducted my own investigation after reading the army's statement, and I realized it did not reflect reality, and that some of the victims in the targeted car had nothing to do with drug trafficking," he said.

The army had confirmed the previous day that three people had been killed in clashes between its soldiers and suspected drug traffickers, including the notorious "Abu Salleh," whose real name is Ali Mounzer Zeaiter, who had been on the run since previous clashes with the military that left a soldier dead in 2022.

In its statement, the army said that the three killed were "drug traffickers among the most influential and dangerous in the country." Alongside "Abu Salleh" were a man known as "the Sultan" and "F.Z." The three were wanted "for the murder of soldiers, kidnappings, shootings at army posts and patrols, as well as for armed robberies," according to the statement.

Despite all these details from the army, Ghazi Zeaiter insisted that the army's operation put "innocents" in danger. "The car was targeted by a rocket, and what we saw afterwards is proof, which is why it was not a confrontation as the army described, but an execution without judicial procedure," he said.

"Wanted suspects should be arrested and interrogated, not targeted by a drone," continued the Amal MP, adding, however, that "no one is above the law."

He also claimed that "children from our clan were wounded in nearby houses even though they had nothing to do with the suspects, and that's what the investigation should show." "Anyone could have been in that car," he added.

Despite his criticism of the army, the MP reaffirmed his and his clan's commitment to the military institution. However, he publicly called on President Joseph Aoun, who headed the army before his election, Defense Minister Michel Menassa and Army Chief Rodolphe Haykal, "to open an investigation into this operation, in order to clarify all the gray areas."

This is not the first time Ghazi Zeaiter, himself implicated in the Aug. 4, 2020, double explosion at the port of Beirut as a former minister and who has so far refused to appear, has protested the targeting of his distant cousin, Ali Mounzer Zeaiter. In June 2022, he had already criticized an army operation that wounded Abu Salleh, who had himself killed a soldier, calling it a "bizarre phenomenon" that had "injured innocents."