MP Aoun: Yarzeh rockets target the entire Lebanese nation

 
Change and Reform Bloc Leader MP Michel Aoun said on Friday that targeting the Presidential Palace or any other national symbol is not acceptable, stressing that President Michel Sleiman represents the Lebanese state and the rockets that targeted the Yarzeh region, targeted the entire Lebanese nation.                            

As for extending the mandate of Lebanese Armed Forces’ Commander General Jean Kahwagi, MP Aoun said that General Kahwagi may reject this extension, and considered that this prolongation undermines the morale of senior leaderships at the military institution.     

Two rockets slammed on Thursday night (1st of August) into the region of Yarze, the first hitting the al-Frayha building near the Presidential Palace and the second landing near the Khashiqji building, military sources told LBCI on Friday.                          

Well-informed sources also told LBCI that the perpetrators probably used a mobile launch pad and then escaped the area.            

The blasts were the latest in a series of rocket attacks that have targeted areas just south of the capital in the past two months; a direct fallout from the civil war in neighboring Syria.                               

The attack comes on the same day that President Michel Sleiman delivered a speech on the occasion of Army Day in which he criticized the involvement of the Lebanese Hezbollah group in the Syrian civil war in support of Assad's forces.                                                                 

In his speech, Sleiman called for Hezbollah's weapons to be folded under that of the Lebanese army.                         

The group has a formidable weapons arsenal that rivals that of the national army.                   

Lebanon is deeply divided along sectarian lines and between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad.