An-Nahar: Telecoms detonator explodes, taking away the interior minister

Suddenly concerns over the government formation – even implications of the upheaval in Syria on the Lebanon situation – vanished, taking the internal crisis back to the period before the toppling of the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri by recalling the repeated explosive episodes linked to the telecommunications ministry and telecoms networks and the interlinked conflicts at the cellular-economic level on one hand and security on the other.

If the old conflict between Telecoms Minister Charbel Nahhas and Abdel-Monem Youssef, the general-director of Lebanon’s telecoms provider Ogero, was the direct cause of the explosion, the blast had serious implications that saw a rare, unprecedented move – the stepping down of caretaker Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud.

This exceptional move has revealed that the conflict between Nahhas and Ogero had stretched beyond limits and developed to involve one security side against another, both of them operating under the same command of the Internal Security Forces.

This shows that ambiguity is an extremely serious matter and that responsibilities remain vague over this explosive issue, even though its direct results led Baroud to bow out after ISF chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi refused to heed his orders to withdraw a police unit that had sealed off the second floor of a telecoms ministry facility, denying Nahhas entry.

Ministerial sources did not hide their fears that this conflict may be harbinger of a long period of similar clashes and confrontations within the state and its institutions in the wake of the split caused by the political vacuum and government paralysis.

As-Safir: State assassinated by countrymen’s weapons: policemen prevent Telecoms Minister from entering black floor

Perhaps the most horrific images were the ones shown Thursday – when Lebanese saw TV footage of their state being assassinated by weapons of its own countrymen.

A regular security force taking control of a state building – the Telecoms Ministry in Adlieh, Beirut, and the faceoff between the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces and another branch in charge of embassies (who both operate under the same command), and the forceful prevention of a Cabinet Minister from entering a facility affiliated to his ministry, and the presence of about 50 policemen, their fingers on the trigger, against a minister and his employees – this is an unprecedented achievement that did not even take place during Lebanon’s Civil War era of chaos and militias.

Al-Mustaqbal: Hariri OK with judiciary action to determine reasons as to why Nahhas overstepped authority

Perhaps for the tenth time in a row, outgoing Telecoms Minister Charbel Nahhs gets involved in a hotbed of conflicts, maliciousness and violation of the laws. The show he put on Thursday, however, could perhaps be the hundredth move if not more in a series of instances of one political camp determined to push the country towards failure so that the mini-state could complete its structure on the ruins of the state and its people.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri has held talks with President Michel Sleiman, Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud as well as security and judicial authorities in an effort to follow up on the issue of Nahhas who illegally took control of the third telecoms network.

Hariri agreed to allow judicial authorities to handle Nahhas’ case to determine the reasons as to why Nahhas overstepped Cabinet decisions and to identify to whom Nahhas planned to hand over state-owned communication equipment.

Al-Mustaqbal learned from well-informed sources that Nahhas had planned to dismantle the $50 million equipment donated by China and earmarked for a third mobile telecoms company and give them to mtc-touch as a gift.

However mtc turned down Nahhas’ “poisonous” gift after it found out from Ogero’s Abdel-Monem Youssef that his act was unlawful.

Al-Akhbar: Information Branch confronts Nahhas: [Incident of] May 7 reversed

Tit-for-tat accusations by some Lebanese politicians proved they were right. In Lebanon, there is a mini-security state led by the Information Branch. Also in Lebanon, there is a third cellular network hosted on the second floor of a Telecoms building in Adliyeh.

Lebanese must have looked fondly on the days the state was made up of “farms,” after what they saw Thursday at the Telecoms Ministry in Adliyeh: Gunmen in civilian clothes and uniformed security men prevented a minister from entering a building belonging to his ministry. Their fingers on the trigger, a real massacre could have taken place, but between whom? Between comrades in arms who have maintained unity throughout the height of the Civil War.