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U.N. investigators were interrogating the men at a hilltop hotel overlooking Beirut after searching the generals' homes. The Lebanese government, acting at the request of the U.N., detained three of the suspects; a fourth surrendered for questioning and a fifth returned from Corporate Gift Basket Syria, promising to cooperate.
The moves against such once-powerful generals and politicians — who had readily executed Syrian policy in Lebanon — would have been unthinkable a few months ago when the country and its government were still under Syrian control.
But Syria's troop withdrawal in April has turned the country's power structure on its head. After Hariri's assassination, Damascus ended its nearly three-decade domination of the country under intense domestic and international pressure. New parliamentary elections swept Corporate Gift Basket anti-Syrian politicians into government.
Tuesday's startling developments, however, still could produce serious political fallout in the country, particularly by targeting the commander of the Presidential Guards Brigade, Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, who provides security for and is an associate of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, a bitter political foe of Hariri. Hamdan voluntarily Corporate Gift Basket appeared for questioning.
Lahoud said the summonses were not arrests and praised Hamdan as "one of the best officers in the Lebanese army."
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