There is consensus over the fact that the decision to assassinate Brigadier General Wissam Al-Hassan took place when he uncovered the bombing plot in which former Minister Michel Samaha was implicated, especially as it revealed the Syrian government to be implicated at the highest levels. All suspicions have turned towards Damascus, voiced especially by those who support the Syrian opposition. This means that the assassination of Al-Hassan by far exceeds a mere vengeful attack against a member of security forces. It is in fact a political crime par excellence. It is well known that the Information Branch, headed by Al-Hassan, of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (ISF) has, ever since it was formed, been the target of an exceptionally fierce campaign by Syria's supporters in Lebanon. Indeed, they have challenged the legality of the branch, and considered it to be working for the interests of a particular segment of society, specifically the Future Movement, the Sunni community and the March 14 Alliance. In other words, they worked to drive the branch out of the scope of state recognition, so as to turn it into a mere affiliate of certain political forces. The campaign against the branch would intensify every time it was able to achieve a security breakthrough, whether in terms of uncovering networks of agents dealing with Israel or networks of Fundamentalist groups, or of shedding light on the assassinations that have taken place since the bombing of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri's motorcade. In other words, every time the branch would achieve clear and public gains, of interest to all Lebanese and of service to state institutions, in particular the Judiciary, in pursuing criminal and terrorist activity, it would be exposed to a redoubled campaign against it by the March 8 Alliance and supporters of Syria and Iran in general. And when such campaigns failed to stamp out the Information Branch, the campaign turned against the head of the branch in person, Al-Hassan, who was often exposed to direct threats on television and in press conferences. Those campaigns stressed the fact that Al-Hassan was a member of the Sunni community, as they stressed his special relationship with the Hariri family, Rafic and later Saad, and with the Future Movement and the March 14 Alliance. In fact, some of these campaigns included accusations against him of overlooking, if not facilitating, the activity of Jihadist groups, by virtue of shared sectarian identity. Such accusations in themselves carry an extremely important element connected to the balance between positions within Lebanon's security forces, after Syria's supporters have come to hold institutional presence in Lebanese security positions that facilitate their movement and provide them with cover. There is also consensus among Lebanese opposition leaders over the fact that Al-Hassan represented nearly the only protection they had with regard to plans that target them, whether in terms of directly providing them with security, or in terms of warning them about the possibility of their being targeted on the basis of information gathered by his branch. In this sense, the Information Branch represented, in the person of its murdered commander, a sure element of balance in the phase of fragile stability which Lebanon is going through. This is not just at the level of protecting specific people and uncovering threats, but also at the level of state institutions, especially as the branch had remained shielded from the influence of Syria's supporters. Similarly, it symbolically represented the only position within the Lebanese state that could be resorted to in order to obtain trusted information. This is most likely the profound meaning behind the assassination of Al-Hassan. It is an attempt to strike at the only effective position remaining in the state and preserving its balance at the institutional level. Syria's supporters resorted to changing the balance of power on the ground by occupying Beirut on May 7, 2008, which was followed by the Doha Agreement, and then to reversing the balance of political power by changing the majority in government. They succeeded in both cases, but the presence of the Information Branch continued to represent a pole of balance, with which it was possible to limit the repercussions of such a change. And on October 19, the bombing that took the life of Al-Hassan aimed at tearing down such a dam, so as to completely expose the state and its institutions to the political hegemony of Syria's supporters and of their excess power in Lebanon. Of course, such a goal is connected to what is taking place in Syria, the widening area of control by the armed opposition there, and the growing involvement of Syria's supporters in Lebanon in the Syrian conflict – placing the targeting of a security service associated to its commander's sectarian affiliation at the core of the battle currently taking place in and over Syria.
