Timeline of
Tragic Events
[January 1976 - October 1990]
January 1976
In Damour and Jieh, two Christian towns south of Beirut, the Palestinians and Syrians went so far as to
cut the fingers of Christian children to ensure that they never would be able to pull a gun's trigger. In
Damour, at least 300 inhabitants were killed and their churches profaned.
May 31, 1976
The Syrians invaded Lebanon and established their
rule. The invaders pillaged the towns and villages
they went through and humiliated the Lebanese
population. The Syrians shelled all the regions under
Muslim domination. There must have been over 500
victims, mostly civilians.
March 16, 1977
the Syrians murdered Mr. Kamal Joumblatt, they sent
Druze to attack Christian villages. The result: At
least 1000 people were massacred. The village of Deir
Dourit was erased, with 273 dead.
February 7, 1978
hostilities started between the Lebanese Army and the
Arab Force of Dissuasion, the FAD, with its Syrian
majority and under the command of the Lebanese
lieutenant Sami Khatib, as a result of the
installation of a Syrian barrage near the Fayadieh
Barracks, the seat of the Lebanese military commander
of Mount Lebanon. The Syrian soldiers insisted on
controlling all Lebanese military vehicles entering
the Fayadieh Barracks. They shelled the residential
quarters with Stalin Organs and opened fire on the
barracks with MBT guns. Mention must be made that as of that period, Sami
Khatib is one of the best Syrian agents in Lebanon. He is responsible for the incarceration of thousands of
Lebanese and the disappearance of hundreds of others following their torture.
June 27, 1978
Elements from the "special Syrian forces" dragged out
of their beds 30 young men from the villages of Kaa
and Ras_Baalbeck and executed them without any form of
trial. The man who headed and completed this job was
none other than the Syrian officer Ali Dib.
July 1, 1978
The civilian population of East Beirut and its suburbs
were shelled by Syrian artillery and started with the
residential quarters of East Beirut. The private
militia of Rifaat Assad, brother of the Syrian
President, circled the free regions around Beirut. The
shelling lasted five days and five nights. Heavy
caliber shells were used, from heavy cannon to
Kaytusha rockets and including all kinds of mortars
[up to 240 mm], rockets and missiles. According to
some obbservers, all sorts of weapon were used, except
for aerial bombing. Sixty civilians were killed and
over 300 injured.
Beginning 1979
The Syrians bombed East Beirut and the adjoining
Christian regions. 82, 120 and 160 mm shells fell on
the targeted sectors.
August 1979
The Syrians shell the villages of Niha, Deir Bella and
Douma in North Lebanon.
February 24, 1980
Mr. Selim Laouzi, owner and director of the al
Hawadess revue, was kidnapped by the Syrians on the
road to the Beirut airport. The mutilated and
decomposed body of the journalist was found in the
Aramoun forest ten days after his abduction. He was
shot twice in the head after having been tortured
horribly: the ribs on his right side had been crushed
by repeated blows with a bar and his right arm was
lacerated to the bone, from his armpit to his elbow.
July 23, 1980
Riad Taha, president of the press, was killed at
Chourane [Raouchi] by the Syrians. His car had been
sprayed with bullets. Taha was hit by seven bullets in
his face, the back of his head and his breast.
September 4, 1981, Louis Delamarre, the French
Ambassador to Lebanon was murdered by the Syrians in
West Beirut. France remained indifferent to this
murder.
March 1981
The towns of Zahli in the Bekaa and East Beirut were
shelled. In Lebanon, even the Red Cross was a target
for the Syrians. Sister [Nun] Marie Sophie Zoghbi was
one of the Red Cross ambulance drivers since the
beginning of the war. She had forced her way through
the front to the south of the town of Zahli on the
Saadnayel road. Alone at the wheel of her ambulance,
she'd gone to fetch the dying in Zahli. The Syrians
shot the vehicle, killing her on the spot. The town's
hospital was eradicated by thousands of shells which
fell on it during one night. Water, food, and
medicines grew rarer and the corpses of some of the
wounded who'd died under the shelters couldn't be
evacuated. In all, the fighting had left some two
hundred dead and five hundred wounded in Beirut alone.
The Palestinians, too, had participated actively in
the Zahli shelling. The Palestinian military commander
was Ahmad Ismail.
February 1982
In the Syrian city of Hama, an insurrection by the
Moslem Brothers was suppressed with rare brutality in
modern history. The Alawite army isolated the city,
cutting off any contact with the outside, and opened a
ground and aerial bombing. According to Amnesty
International, the Syrian military had placed rubber
pipes at the entrance of buildings where insurgents
were said to be hiding and pumped in poison gas. It is
claimed that there were some 30,000 dead in Hama. The
Alawite army attacked the entire population, both
Christians and Moslems.
April 3, 1982
The murder of Yacov Barsimentov, third secretary at
the Israeli Embassy in Paris. The murder was claimed
by the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Fractions [FARL],
a small terrorist group created and manipulated by the
Syrians.
April 22, 1982
A booby trapped car exploded Rue Marbeuf in Paris. Two
Syrian diplomats were expelled, and the French
Ambassador recalled for consultation.
May 24, 1982
A Syrian attack against the French Embassy in Lebanon.
At eight AM on a Monday morning, Anna Comidis,
secretary at the commercial service of the French
Embassy in Beirut entered the gate of the compound at
the wheel of her Renault R12. The car exploded at that
very moment. Anna Comidis' body was shredded to
pieces. Ten additional people were killed and over
twenty were injured. The explosion, estimated as some
fifty kilograms of inflammable fuel, was operated from
a distance at the moment the car was entering the
grounds of the embassy.
September 14, 1982
Syria murders the Lebanese elected president, Bechir
Gemayel. The Syrians used Habib Chartouni as an
assassin. The murder was perpetrated at the military
HQ of the Phalangists in Achrafieh. Habib Chartouni
had belonged to the pro-Syrian party the PSNS, since 1977, and was recruited by Assaad Hardane, head of the
pro-Syrian party in Lebanon. Elie Hobeika, head of the
Phalangist security had recruited Habib Chartouni.
Hobeika acted in accordance with the Syrians. Ali
Douba, chief of the Syrian intelligence services
supplied Chartouni with the explosives. Chartouni
received half a million Lebanese pounds [700,000 FF at
the time]. Twenty six people were killed in addition
to Bechir Gemayel in that explosion. The Syrian
consider Chartouni a hero, and they liberated him in
October 1990 when they invaded the two Metn. Elias
Hirawi, second post Taif president, announced
ironically, following the liberation of Chartouni,
that inquiry would be opened to find Gemayel's
murderers.
December 1982
The Syrians destroy the town of Tripoli in Northern
Lebanon. The fighting between the Sunnites of Tripoli
and the Syrians started at the beginning of December.
The Baal Mohsen quarter was held by the Syrians and
their allies while the Bab Tebbanne quarter was
controlled by the anti-Syrian Lebanese militia. The
Syrians formed a militia loyal to them, the Arab
Democratic Party, whose general secretary was Nassib
Khatib, though directed by the Alawite Ali Eid. The
fighting lasted three years. Tripoli had become a
second Beirut.
September 1983
Over 110 villages or Christian quarters in the
Chouf were ethnically cleansed of their Christian inhabitants:
Throats were slit, bodies hacked apart with axes, many were burned
alive over fire red, iron bars. Syrian soldiers and members of
the Druze community of Lebanon took part in these massacres. Likewise,
on November 8, 1982, Israeli
Druze officers allowed the Lebanese Druze to massacre the Christian
population in certain villages such as Kfarnabrakh, at the foot
of the cedars of Mount Barouk. Walid Joumblatt, the leader of
the Lebanese Druze, gave the order to massacre the Chouf Christians.
A commando of Khomeinist Iranians emerged from
its Baalbeck hideout, arrived at Rayak in the Bekaa, and after
praying at the mosque exploded a residential building inhabited
by Christians, leaving behind dead and wounded. The Syrians present
on the premises prevented the Lebanese Civil Defense from removing
debris burying two screaming survivors. Assayed Ahmad Al Fihri,
appointed by Khomeiny to head the Hezbollah in the Middle East,
is responsible for this massacre at Rayak. The Iranian ambassador
in Syria, Ali Akbar Montachami, and the military attachi, Colonel
Haromi Zadem, had been placed at Al Fihri's service.
October 23, 1983
250 American soldiers and 70 French soldiers were
killed at their HQs in West Beirut. Lebanese and
Iranian Islamists supported by Syrian logistics headed
the operation. According to certain military sources,
both buildings had been packed full of dynamite, which
explains the high number of casualties. France and the
USA remained indifferent to these massacres. In the
wake of this, the soldiers of both countries were
repatriated because Beirut had turned into a dangerous
city, even for the mightiest fighters of all times.
1983-1984 The Syrians shelled and lay siege to the city of Tripoli in Northern Lebanon. The overt objective was
to evict the PLO Palestinians. The Syrian army had
mobilized militants from Tripoli to take part in that
job. According to the evidence of former Lebanese
militiamen who participated in the battle on Tripoli
on the side of the Syrians, the latter shelled
residential zones inhabited by Lebanese civilians and
where no Palestinians ever dwelled. The Lebanese
militiamen who refused to take part in the destruction
of their city were systematically arrested, tortured,
and then executed.
February 1984
Occupation of West Beirut by Amal, the pro-Syrian
Shi'ite militia.
On February 6,
1984, Amal supported
by Syrian troupes, attacked the Lebanese army
stationed in West Beirut. The fighting left at least
one hundred dead and over 400 injured. Nabih Berri,
Head of Amal, and Ghazi Kanaan, commander of the
Syrian forces in Lebanon, are responsible for this
slaughter.
March 1985
Exodus of tens of thousands of Christians from Iklim
El_Kharroub and the eastern part of Saida. The
Palestinians and Lebanese Druze laid siege to,
pillaged and burned over twenty Christian villages.
Walid Joumblatt, Yasser Arafat and Syrian officers,
planned these massacres.
January 1986
Cancellation of the tri_partite agreement by a war
between Amine Gemayel's phalangists and Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces which opposed the agreement on the one
hand, and Elie Hobeika's partisans on the other hand. Hobeika found refuge among his Syrian friends.
Following the failure of the tri-partite agreement,
car bombs started to appear in Beirut and its eastern
suburb:
- On Tuesday, March 21,
1986, 11.35 hours, a car bomb
exploded in Furn_El_Chebback [East Beirut], leaving 30 dead and at least 132 injured.
- On May 20, 1986, the French Prime Minister Chirac
announced that he was in favor of strengthening ties
between France and Syria. He added that a solution for Lebanon could only be found together with Syria.
- On May 21, 1986, a car bomb exploded in the
Christian sector, leaving 7 dead and over 100 injured.
- On July 29, 1986, a Mercedes exploded on the Wadih
Nahim Street in Ein el Remmaneh, a Beirut suburb, with
31 dead and 128 injured.
- On July 30, 1986, a booby trapped Mercedes exploded
in Barbir, West Beirut. The result: 22 dead and 163 injured. Syria and Elie Hobeika instigated these
terrorist cases.
September 17, 1986
an explosion took place in the Rue de Rennes in Paris,
in front of the doors of the Tati store. Three women
and two men were killed, and over 52 were injured.
The French Secret Services accused Colonel Ghazi
Kanaan of acting as the terrorist chief. Colonel
Kanaan manipulated the killers within a framework of
operations determined jointly by Iran and Lybbia under
the aegis of Damascus. The operation having concluded
successfully, Colonel Kanaan was promoted to the rank
of General.
September 1986
Colonel Christian Gouttiire, French military attachi
in Lebanon was killed near the French embassy in Mar
Takla, in the region of East Beirut. In Damascus, far
more rapidly than was their custom, the Syrians
hastened to condemn the murder of the French military
attachi.
1987
The provocation of the Druze-Shi'ite inter-faith war
and the occupation of West Beirut. Since the beginning
of 1987, the tension between Joumblatt and Berri was
reaching its apex. For over a year, the two rival
militias shared everything in West Beirut, thefts,
racketeering and crimes. This tension culminated in
the most violent fighting ever seen in West Beirut.
These fights, well orchestrated by the Syrians, lasted
for a long time, with neither of the two militias
managing to gain the upper hand.
February
1987
The Syrians entered
West Beirut. The Lebanese Prime
Minister Salim Hoss and other political and Moslem
religious leaders approved the Syrian decision,
preferring an Arab army to the Lebanese Army. Hafez el
Assad later got rid of the Sunnite Mufti Hassan Khaled
on the day the Mufti requested the Syrians to leave
Lebanon. The Syrian secret services placed 200 kgs of
explosives under his car.
On May 8, 1988
An inter-Shi'ite war is provoked between Amal and
Hezbollah. The fighting lasted three weeks, in the
course of which the Amal militia, financed and
manipulated by Damascus, collapsed before the rival
militia. This war enabled the Syrians to deploy their
forces in the southern Shi'ite suburb of Beirut,
having done so a year before in the western suburb.
March 1989
The Syrians shell the eastern regions of Beirut. At
the end of February 1989, the Lebanese Prime Minister,
General Michel Aoun, decides to close all the illegal
ports in Lebanon that allow for drug traffic. The
Syrian response was rapid: A shelling of the regions
controlled by the Lebanese army, with an average of
6000 shells per day. The Syrian forces used for this
fight totaled about 20,000 men who were under the
command of Generals Gazi Kanaan and Ali Hammoud.
The Syrians killed the Spanish ambassador to Lebanon.
In their wild shelling of the Lebanese population, the
Syrian hit the residence of Mr. Pedro Manuel de
Aristegui, Spanish Ambassador to Lebanon. A shell
exploded and destroyed the building where the
diplomat's residence was located, killing the
ambassador, his father-in-law, his sister-in-law, and
the Lebanese writer Toufic Youssef Aouad. Despite the
confirmation that the 240 mm shell had come from the
Syrian lines, the official circles in Madrid refused
to accuse the Syrians.
November 22, 1989
It was 13.50 hours in Beirut, when the armored
Mercedes of Reni Moawad, accompanied by Syrian
soldiers was blown into pieces. Two hundred kilos of
TNT had exploded under his car. In addition to Moawad,
17 Syrian soldiers perished as well. This is how the
life of a traitor who had entered Syria's service
ended. It is to be noted that Reni Moawad's wife never
submitted any complaint against the Syrians. Worse
still, she continues to this day to collaborate with
the Syrians, her husband's murderers.
