BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- A group calling itself "Strugglers for Unity and Freedom in Bilad Sham" claimed responsibility for killing Lebanese publisher Gibran Tueni.
The group said in a statement faxed to the "Eilaf" Web site to have "succeeded."
"We have broken the pen of the so-called Gibran Tueni forever and turned his newspaper An-Nahar (The Day in Arabic) into a dark night," said the statement, which could not be authenticated.
"This will be the fate of whoever attempts to antagonize the party which offered a lot and still does for the sake of Lebanon and its Arab identity," the statement added in an obvious reference to Syria.
Tueni, a Member of Parliament and outspoken anti-Syria journalist, was killed in an explosion that cut through his armored car outside Beirut Monday.
Tueni, who returned from Paris Sunday night after spending time there for security reasons, said in the summer that he and other anti-Syrian officials were threatened.
Eyewitnesses said the explosion charred and disfigured the victims beyond recognition. Three others died in the bombing.
Commenting on the assassination, the fourth since a massive blast killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, Druze leader and head of the anti-Syria opposition in Lebanon, Walid Jumblatt, said: "Thank you, we have received the message."
Accusing Syria of carrying out Monday's assassination, Jumblatt added that the "head of the neighboring security regime yesterday threatened that the stability in the region will be shaken if sanctions are imposed on Syria, and today we received the message."
Tueni is the third anti-Syrian Lebanese journalist to be targeted in the past six months. Another An-Nahar writer, Samir Kassir, was killed, and television anchorwoman May Chidiac was seriously injured in separate blasts.
Communications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, who is Tueni's uncle, who escaped an attempt on his life 14 months ago, threatened that the Democratic Gathering bloc would pullout from the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora unless the government asks the Security Council to extend an international inquiry into Hariri's assassination to all other assassinations that have occurred in Lebanon since October 2004.
