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A key Lebanese Christian ally of the Shiite Hezbollah movement, Michel Aoun, said he was targeted by an assassination attempt Saturday night after local media reported his convoy came under fire.
“In my lifetime, I have been the target of three assassination attempts,” the former army chief said on live television, after returning from a political tour of South Lebanon.
“This was the fourth and it failed,” he added.
“Why would they want to kill me? Because I go against the tide,” said Aoun, who was staunchly anti-Syrian during the civil war, but entered into a controversial alliance with the Iran and Syria-backed Hezbollah in 2006.
“For the first three, we found the perpetrators. We have not yet discovered the perpetrators of this attack,” he added.
The National News Agency reported that investigations into the alleged assassination attempt were launched on Saturday evening under the supervision of the General Prosecution.
It added that on Sunday a delegation of security officials inspected the scene of the incident where Aoun’s convoy reportedly came under gunfire.
Meanwhile, Al-Manar television reported that Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called the FPM leader to congratulate him for his safety.
Aoun leads the Free Patriotic Movement, a largely Christian party, which issued a statement Saturday that its leader’s convoy was fired upon on the way back from a political tour. Lebanese media specified that the attack took place in the predominantly Sunni Muslim city of Sidon.
Lebanon is deeply divided between a Western-backed opposition, which is led by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and backs the Syrian revolt, and the pro-Damascus ruling coalition, which is led by Hezbollah and includes Aoun.
Christians are split between the two sides.
Aoun has repeatedly voiced fears that a collapse of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would bring extremists to power and take Lebanon’s larger neighbor back to the Middle Ages.
Since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, there have been a series assassinations of prominent figures in Lebanon, mainly those hostile to the Assad regime.
