“There shall be no dialogue and no government formed with the killers.” This was the gist of the March 14 Alliance meeting that convened in the home of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Wadi Abu Jamil. The attendees did not hesitate to issue thinly veiled accusations of Hezbollah being behind the December 27 assassination of Mohammed Shatah.
This time, unlike all previous times, Mohammed Shatah was not the first to arrive at Saad Hariri’s home in Wadi Abu Jamil. The March 14 alliance was to convene at Hariri’s home to follow up on the recommendations made in the Tripoli Declaration – which had appealed for reconciliation in the northern city of Tripoli but also carried implicit calls for a political boycott of Hezbollah. Instead, Shatah’s life was taken treacherously by a car bomb planted along his route.