BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- A senior Lebanese journalist has identified a U.S. embassy employee as one of the snipers who opened fire at supporters of Hezbollah and Amal movements who were marching peacefully towards the Palace of Justice in central Beirut.
In a post on his twitter account, Hosein Mortada released a photo of Shukri Abu Saab, a member of the Lebanese security forces and a U.S. embassy employee, and said he had been one of the snipers involved in the recent deaths in Beirut.
On Thursday, at least seven people were killed and 60 others injured after gunmen attacked Hezbollah and Amal supporters as they passed through Beirut’s Teyouneh traffic circle dividing Christian and Shia Muslim neighborhoods.
The demonstrators had taken to the streets of Lebanese capital to protest against the politicization of a judicial investigation into the 2020 port blast that devastated swathes of Beirut and left over 200 people dead.
The violence was the worst in more than a decade and stirred memories of Lebanon’s ruinous 1975-90 civil war.
In a statement, Hezbollah and Amal said armed groups affiliated with Samir Geagea’s Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) Party fired at the protesters from rooftops, aiming at their heads, in an attempt to drag the country into new sectarian strife.
Speaking at the funeral of victims of Thursday’s shootings, senior Hezbollah member Hashem Safieddine said what happened in Beirut “was part of measures managed by the U.S. embassy in Lebanon and funded by some Arab parties.”
A top-level meeting at Lebanon’s interior ministry concluded that the far-right LF political party started the bloodshed.
After the incident, the Lebanese army issued a statement, saying “the protesters, as they headed to the Adliyeh area, were fired upon in the Tayouneh-Badaro area”.

However, observers noted contradictions between the army’s first statement and a second statement that was issued after a meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.
On Friday, Grand Shia Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Qabalan held the U.S. embassy in Beirut and the judge probing the Beirut port explosion accountable for any bloodshed in Lebanon.
“The responsibility for any bloodshed, sedition, threats to domestic peace, and turmoil in Lebanon lies with the U.S. Embassy and Tarek Bitar, who should be removed from the probe and interrogated,” he said in a statement.
He condemned the Tayyoune shooting, describing the consequent security and political fallout as “unfortunate and fairly dangerous.”
Former Lebanese president Emile Lahoud pointed to the involvement of the occupying regime of Israel

in addition to mercenaries and enemies of the resistance front in the violence.
Lahoud said mercenaries intend to break up Lebanon, spark a civil war weaken and finally disintegrate resistance.
Lebanon has been mired since late 2019 in a deep financial crisis, which has pushed more than half the nearly 7 million population into poverty. The dire situation was worsened by more than a year without a fully functioning government in the Mediterranean country.
The U.S. exacerbated the crisis by imposing a siege on Lebanon in a bid to force the formation of a Western-friendly administration there.