Eleven ministers from Hezbollah and their allies pulled out of the 30-member coalition cabinet Wednesday after Prime Minister Saad Hariri refused to discredit a United Nations-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.The developments in Beirut has put Israel's military on alert, as Hezbollah has used southern Lebanon to launch rocket attacks into Israel as recently as 2006.
The Hariri tribunal is expected as soon as next week to indict two to five members of Hezbollah for roles in the assassination, according to officials briefed on the court's work.
The announcement of the resignations coincided with Prime Minister Hariri's meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington. An opposition minister said they wanted Mr. Hariri to "meet Obama as the former prime minister of Lebanon."
Successive U.S. governments have supported Mr. Hariri and his father in a bid to build a secular Western-leaning government on Israel's northern border. The Obama administration had viewed the White House meeting as an important symbol of support for the Lebanese leader
The new developments underscore the re-emergence of Syria as a formidable power broker in Lebanon and its crucial role—along with Iran—in steering Hezbollah, a political and militant party on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist groups.
"On big regional and strategic matters Iran has the first word but in Lebanon's internal affairs, Syria calls the shots," said Okab Sakr, a parliamentarian for Mr. Hariri's bloc.
In the short term, it is unlikely that Hezbollah, will resort to violence, as it did in 2008, in a dispute over security and the use of the movement's telecom network, analysts say.
Hezbollah's ministers on Wednesday stressed that withdrawing from the government was within their democratic rights.
Mr. Hariri's office said he was cutting his visit to Washington short and heading home, where he would meet with President Michel Suleiman to discuss the next steps.
Reuters photoElsewhere, the president of Tunisia has fled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia after demonstrators protesting high unemployment and food prices began rioting and clashing with police.
President Zine al-Abadine Ben Ali seized power in a bloodless coup in 1987, and leaked diplomatic cables from the US Embassy compare Ben Ali's family and inner circle to a mafia family.The leaked cables seemed to confirm what many Tunisians had already suspected about the ruling party and first family.
Clashes between authorities and protesters and police crackdowns had killed 23 in Tunisia this week, although some human rights groups say the total could be as high as 66.
The final moments of Mr Ben Ali's long dominance of his country will be remembered for the drama on the streets as protests that have raged across the country for four weeks, finally reached the capital on Thursday.Ben Ali named Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi Tunisia's interim head of state before leaving the country. An aircraft thought to be carrying Ben Ali departed from Tunis and landed on the Italian island of Sardinia, but that turned out to be a decoy.
Demonstrators ignored a curfew, and took no notice of a promise by Mr Ben Ali that night not to seek a sixth term of office in 2014. Instead of returning home, they took to the streets and the roof-tops, even of government buildings and the interior ministry, hurling stones at symbols of authority.
Although Tunisian airspace was briefly shut down, British Travel agency Thomas Cook began evacuating an estimated 3000 Britons on vacation in the North African country.
Although the interim government announced plans for a special election within 60 days, rioters continued looting businesses and torched the capital city's main train station on Friday.
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