WikiLeaks: Jumblat Says Hariri Training 15,000 Fighters in Beirut and Tripoli

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat voiced his concern over reports that the Mustaqbal movement was training Sunni militias in Beirut and Tripoli of some 15,000 fighters, said a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published in exclusively in Al-Akhbar newspaper on Tuesday.

The MP stated that MP Saad Hariri’s establishment of private security companies in Beirut and Tripoli is a sign that some individuals are providing him with bad advice, such as ISF chief Ashraf Rifi.

In addition, the Druze leader revealed that the head of the intelligence bureau, Wissam al-Hassan, had informed him that Mustaqbal movement members were being trained in fighting and that he opposed such activity.

The WikiLeaks cable also addressed Jumblat’s concern over the recent developments in the investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the most recent of which was the assassination of Major Wissam Eid, a top communications analyst with the police intelligence bureau.

Hassan informed the MP that Eid had discovered a network of 17 telephone numbers connected to the Hariri assassination.

Eid had told then head of the international investigation Serge Brammertz of this discovery, but he disregarded it, the cable continued.