Charbel: Rockets Launched on Baabda are Owned by Many Factions

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel shied away on Friday from accusing any party of launching rockets on Baabda district, saying several parties have in their possession such rockets.

“Many factions own similar rockets,” Charbel told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3).

“The rockets that were launched on Baabda and Yarze yesterday were the same that were launched from Ballouneh towards the (area of) Jamhour and Beirut's southern suburbs,” Charbel said.

“We haven't confirmed yet the source of the attacks,” he said, hoping investigators would reach results on Friday.

Reports said one rocket fell in the garden of a house located just 100 meters from the secondary entrance of the Baabda presidential palace.

The second reportedly fell near a Lebanese army training camp in the area of al-Rihaniyeh.

The third, which Charbel did not confirm, has hit an area between Baabda and Bshamoun, the reports said.

The attack comes on the same day that President Michel Suleiman gave a speech for Army Day in which he criticized Hizbullah's involvement in the Syrian war in support of President Bashar Assad's forces.

In June, a Grad rocket fired from Ballouneh in Kesrouan district exploded after it hit an electricity line in the Monteverde valley.

The army found a second rocket at the launch site.

And in May, two rockets hit Beirut's southern suburbs shortly after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah made a speech defending his party's involvement in Syria.