The Future Movement Without Wissam al-Hassan

Friday, 9 November 2012

The Future Movement Without Wissam al-Hassan

Published Friday, November 9, 2012

The assassination of Gen. Wissam al-Hassan has begun to cast it shadow over the workings of the March 14 camp, and particularly within the Future Movement.

It has led to heightened security measures for Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea, who ordered more security at his main headquarters and for his entourage. These measures were extended to all leadership figures in the organization whose members feel it was Hassan who played the key role in information-gathering.

The Phalange party has long been on the alert. There is a deep-seated feeling that the family of former president Amin Gemayel is under constant threat. The precautions taken by MP Sami Gemayel in particular show the extent of these worries. Although in this case, they do not stem from the same calculations as the LF’s worries, even if the two overlap at times.

There is general apprehension among Christian figures in the March 14 coalition. Acting on Geagea’s advice, the prominent leaders among them have taken extra security measures. Geagea focused on what he termed the “pivots and keys” – those important figures who wield electoral clout, or whose absence would weaken March 14 in various other respects.

The same approach has been used with other figures. Marwan Hamadeh, the former telecommunications minister, has been persuaded that he is a permanent target, as his elimination would weaken the Druze element that keeps the country in balance thanks to the acrobatics of Walid Jumblatt.

The real beefing up of security is within the Future Movement, where the security machine has been mobilized on several fronts.

Included are measures to protect the Internal Security Forces (ISF) commander General Ashraf Rifi, Colonel Imad Othman (who replaced Hassan as head of the ISF Information Branch), as well as other ISF and army officers and commanders in Beirut, the north, and the Bekaa.

The central concern is for the protection of former prime ministers Fouad Siniora and Saad al-Hariri. The Future Movement’s forward thinkers believe that there would be chaos without Siniora – given his pivotal role as manager and communicator – and that the removal of Hariri would deal a fatal blow to Future and destroy the entire March 14 coalition.

Outside Lebanon, a different kind of security effort is underway. It seems that Arab and Western players are assessing the impact of Hassan’s absence on the ISF’s work, and also on the networks of informers active inside the state and political parties. These could be severely compromised, given that Hassan used to provide them with a security umbrella as well as financial support.

Most striking in this regard is the spate of personnel transfers and changes that have been quietly taking place. It seems that some of these steps are in accordance with advice Hassan had earlier offered, but was not heeded for reasons related to balances within the Future Movement. Others are moves Hassan had previously blocked, but are now being pushed through in his absence. It has reached the point of absurdity in some cases.

Ultimately, there is a different and deeper reason for all this worry, especially among Hariri’s entourage. It has to do with the role they have been playing in Syria. Their involvement in the conflict there broke through all ceilings. The state of delirium that prevailed during Future MP Uqab Saqr’s latest interview on Future TV indicated that these people know that important security players in the region are preparing for the next phase, and that this might make it necessary for dirt that was previously swept under the rug to be cleaned up.

That was reflected in a campaign of highly damaging leaks of information about the direct involvement of Hariri’s entourage in the Syria conflict. If the information coming from Paris, Ankara, Amman, and Abu Dhabi is correct, we should reconsider Suleiman Franjiyeh’s remark about Hassan’s assassination: