Khazen

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon has asked 11 countries and the United Nations to help train its security forces after a string of bombings and assassinations that have fuelled fears of a slide into chaos, the prime minister said on Thursday. "We have knocked on the doors of all the countries that could help us," Fouad Siniora told a news conference after the cabinet's weekly meeting. "We are not facing an ordinary criminal...But we will gather all the tools, training and expertise we can obtain to live up to the challenge," he said. The countries which have responded positively to Lebanon's plea were the United States, France, Russia, Egypt and Qatar, Siniora said. The government has also asked for help from six other states including Britain, Canada and China. Twelve explosions have rocked Lebanon since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, which plunged the country into its worst political and security crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

 By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer,  BEIRUT, Lebanon - FBI agents on Wednesday joined the investigation into the latest of a spate of explosions in Lebanon

Lebanon

BEIRUT - Defence Minister Elias Murr said insecurity in Lebanon was so rife that he has had to take refuge abroad, as Beirut prepares to seek US and French aid in bringing a halt to a series of bomb attacks. "I'm fed up after what happened to May Chidiac. We are all in the same boat," Murr said late Monday in a LBC television interview from Zurich. Chidiac, a leading Christian news presenter and political talk show host on LBC, was maimed when a bomb planted in her car blew up on the northern outskirts of Beirut on Sunday. Murr said he had been based in Zurich ever since a failed attempt on his life on July 12. And he has not resided full-time in Lebanon since January due to security fears, the minister revealed. He said he had had a fierce row with Syria's military intelligence chief in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh, before Syrian troops withdrew in April after a 29-year presence amid outrage over former premier Rafiq Hariri's assassination.Ghazaleh figures among the Syrian officials on a witness list of a UN commission of inquiry into Hariri's killing in a huge bomb blast. "I got information on threats against me personally," Murr told LBC.

Khazen History

Historical Feature:
Churches and Monasteries of the Khazen family