Today, the general manager of the anti-Syrian, pro-independence newspaper An Nahar and a legislator from Beirut was assassinated by a car bomb. Almost all of Gebran Tueni’s editorials that have been published in the English-language version of the paper, Naharnet, have been against Syria. The last one published called the mass graves discovered by Lebanese authorities a crime against humanity.

It is so strange to think that someone who I read in the Lebanese press — and not just any Lebanese press, this is by far one of the most influential papers — can just be wiped out like that, never to return. He played a large role in the Cedar Revolution, adamantly backing Saad Hariri and using his position at An Nahar to promote information for the cause of his country’s independence. Undoubtedly, a risk he took and eventually died for.

The pattern of car bombings has always been apparent. They all target anti-Syrian leaders mainly from the Christian and Sunni communities. After a long occupation this goes to show just how well Syria has learned the vulnerabilities that can be exploited in Lebanon’s system of government, the consociational system. For one, the system is highly susceptible to external influences, as Syrian occupation and Hezbollah’s integration into the political system has shown.

Also, the system is highly dependent on a stable group of elites that represent their communities. The targetting of prominent anti-Syrian politicians from the Maronite and Sunni communities is meant to erode the leadership of those communities, as they are the center of power in Lebanon now, to the point where they are in disarray. It’s no wonder that Walid Jumblatt, current leader of the Sunni-Maronite aligned Druze community, is afraid for his life!

Of course, one could always look at the recent car bombing in Hezbollah-land and say that the bombers are indiscriminate, but that would be false. According to From Beirut to the Beltway, the Hezbollah member who was targetting “miraculously” escaped before the goon squad cordoned off the area. No investigation will be held, obviously, so we can effectively conclude that it’s a sham, and not the “Zionist enemy” as they claim.

Some previously unknown group has now claimed responsibility for the bombing. Get a load of this.

A previously unknown group, “The Strugglers for the Unity and Freedom in al-Sham,” claimed responsibility. Al-Sham is Arabic for the eastern Mediterranean region that includes Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Palestinian areas.

“We have broken the pen of Gibran Tueni and gagged his mouth forever, turning An-Nahar into a dark night,” it said.

“An-Nahar” is Arabic for day.

“He who contemplates attacking those who have sacrificed everything for the sake of Arabism and Lebanon will face the same fate as … Tueni,” the purported claim said.

This comes on the heels of the next installment of the Mehlis investigation, being released on Dec. 15, which is likely to further implicate Syria in the killing of Rafik Hariri. It seems to me that this pro-Syrian, pan-Arab group is nothing more than a proxy of the Syrian state, acting as a decoy so as to deflect responsibility away from the Syrian government to an organization that doesn’t really exist.

Previously unknown, my ass. We know exactly who did it.