Beirut: Former Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri returned to Beirut less than three hours ago. He immediately drove from the Rafiq Hariri International Airport to his father’s grave where he was seen offering prayers, before he went to the Grand Sarail, the seat of the cabinet in downtown.
A smiling and jovial Hariri was seen on television screens hugging Sarail employees and shaking hands with security personnel, individuals he knew well, along with reporters assigned the beat.
A short meeting with the sitting premier, Tammam Salam, followed although observers were surprised that it lasted less than 30 minutes. No news conference was held at the end of this gathering with Hariri telling reporters that “God will protect everyone,” and that the country would be saved.
For some, that statement was alarming, indicating that the former prime minister was taking a risk by returning without a prior accord with Hezbollah and others regarding his safety.
Leading foes, including Free Patriotic Movement leader General Michel Aoun who famously offered to purchase Hariri a “one-way-ticket” after his coalition government collapsed in 2011, were surprised by this return.
For many others, however, including those concerned that ongoing clashes in Arsal would spread and engulf the country in a new civil war, his arrival was interpreted as akin to a fireman arriving to put out the fire.
Three years after his forced exile, Hariri was back in the thick of Lebanese politics, probably because members of this country’s political establishment concluded that no one else could actually safeguard its security.
It remains to be determined whether a secret deal was made between Hariri — fully backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — and the March 8 coalition to settle on the election of Army Commander Jean Kahwaji as the next President of the Republic, and Hariri re-entrusted with the premiership.
His visit follows a deadly incursion by militants who crossed from Syria and seized the Sunni town of Arsal in the northeast last Saturday. The gunmen withdrew from the town on Wednesday after five days of battles with the army.
The incursion by militants, including fighters affiliated to Islamic State which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria, marked the most serious spillover to date of the three-year-old Syrian civil war.
Hariri earlier this week announced that Saudi Arabia would donate $1 billion in military aid to the Lebanese security forces to help them in the fight against extremists.
