Lebanese Christians said on Friday that the murder of yet another Christian MP was aimed at reducing their community's historically prominent role but balked at being dragged into another civil war. "There is a general feeling that we are targeted as Christians," cried a mourner who did not wish to be identified during the funeral of Antoine Ghanem, the anti-Syrian MP who was killed in a car bombing on Wednesday. "I am convinced that those who carried out this assassination wanted it to be a trap in order to push the Christians to react violently," she said, as pallbearers carried the coffins of Ghanem and his two slain bodyguards. "They want to plunge the country into another civil war, but we will not let them do that," she said, wiping a tear from her face.Ghanem was the eighth anti-Syrian politician to be assassinated since the February 2005 murder of Sunni Muslim prime minister Rafik Hariri. Six of them were Christians.
Rabih, a 30-year-old member of the Lebanese Forces party, stood in anger as he watched pallbearers carrying the coffin into the nearby Sacred Heart church. "They are specifically targeting the Phalange (Christian party) and the Lebanese Forces," he said. "We are always the first ones to say 'no,' so they are making us pay the price of our battle for an independent Lebanon," he said while nervously crumpling a Lebanese Forces flag.