Geagea Says Army Hasn't Identified Nature of Maarab Drone: Efforts to Assassinate Me are Ongoing
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea warned on Monday that his assassination would have major repercussions on the March 14 forces and Lebanese policies in general.
He told al-Arabiya television: “Preparations to assassinate me are ongoing.”
He confirmed media reports that spoke of drones flying over his Maarab residence, saying: “The espionage planes are part of a policy of intimidation against the March 14 camp.”
He stressed however that such methods will not intimidate him “as they will not succeed in assassinating me.”
“They will try to assassinate me again seeing as such a development will have major repercussions on the March 14 forces,” Geagea noted.
On the surveillance planes, he said that he had first noticed it some 15 days ago, adding that security personnel at Maarab noted that the sound generated by the plane differed from normal planes and its course also differed from regular ones.
The mysterious plane flew over Maarab on January 8 at around 12:30 am, he revealed.
The plane flew over the residence for a few minutes, but the suspicious activity prompted the state security forces at the facility to contact the Army Command to inform it of the development, said the LF chief.
After the necessary investigations, the Army Command failed to determine the nature of the plane.
A similar incident took place on January 14, but the plane hovered over Maarab for about two hours between 5:30 and 7:30 pm at a relatively low altitude, Geagea stated.
He consequently directly contacted Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji.
Qahwaji said that the plane “was definitely not a Lebanese one."
"And I personally believe that they were not Israeli surveillance drones as they usually fly over the South and the Bekaa, not over this specific region," Geagea added.
“Military experts informed me that it was unlikely that the plane was Israeli because the drones do not usually hover over a region for a long period of time,” he continued.
Qahwaji pledged to Geagea that he will follow up on this issue.
“I believe that the army will be able to determine the identity of this plane the next time it flies over Maarab,” he remarked.
Geagea suspected that the mysterious plane is linked to telephone threats that have been made against numerous March 14 officials.
Geagea escaped an assassination attempt by snipers as he was taking a walk in the garden of his Maarab residence in April 2012.
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