This article analyses political assassinations in post-civil war Lebanon. Targeted assassinations intensified during the transitional period from war to peace (1989-91), and peaked after the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. From 1989 to the present, 35 major attacks killed and maimed politicians and journalists in addition to innocent bystanders. No Middle Eastern country has such a grim record of political assassinations, the large majority of them unsolved. This article is a first step in examining the timing, scale and context of assassinations in Lebanon over longer timescales to account for violence in 'post-war countries'.

Are John Knudsen

Research Professor, Coordinator HUMIG research group