Mikati fires back at March 14 coalition

Prime Minister Najib Mikati fired back Friday at the March 14 coalition for laying the responsibility for the attempted assassination of MP Butros Harb at the feet of the government. “It is unacceptable for some to ignore the intelligence of public opinion by holding the government responsible for things it is working to resolve,” Mikati told reporters accompanying him on his trip to Berlin, Germany. The March 14 coalition said Thursday the government was responsible for the attempted assassination of MP Butros Harb because it had withheld telecommunications data necessary for security bodies to uncover such plots. After holding a special meeting at Harb’s residence in Hazmieh, March 14 called on the Cabinet -- particularly Hezbollah and Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement -- to allow the Internal Security Forces access to mobile phone data. Harb, a leading March 14 figure, said following the discovery of explosive detonators on the ceiling of the elevator in the Badaro building housing his law office that he had been the target of an assassination attempt. In his response to a reporter’s question about March 14 demanding that the government resign over the attempted killing of Harb, Mikati said: “While some hold fast to their critical stances, we have remained silent long enough; I say to those hurling allegations at the government haphazardly, ‘If you have no shame, do as you please.\'\" He added that there were constitutional mechanisms to replace the government but that they are currently unavailable. “Until [such mechanisms] become available, the government continues its work and productivity, and will not stop at these absurd campaigns the purposes and goals of which are known,” Mikati said.