The attack on Defense Minister Elias Murr is the third attempt on the life of a Lebanese political personality since with the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, believed with little doubt to be the work of Syria . The assassination of Samir Qasseer , was also, with little room left for doubt, a Syrian job (WAR Report) and that of George Hawi is believed to be the work of pro-Syrian security forces . The attack on the life of Elias Murr, who survived the large car bomb intended for him, is much more of a mystery. A run through the usual suspects does not yield a strong argument for any one.

First of all, the Syrian government would have little to gain by killing an ally, such as Murr. The MO for the assassination, a bulky 220-pound mass of TNT placed in car and detonated near Murr?s vehicle that killed 12 innocent bystanders and only slightly wounded Murr, looks nothing like the clean, precise, and sophisticated operations to kill Qasir and Hariri that used weapons-grade explosives and killed only one other person. Even Qasir?s passenger survived when the bomb that killed him went off under his car seat. One theory is that the Syrians did it this way on purpose, in order to deflect suspicion. It is speculated that Murr could have seen the writing on the wall: Syria was out, and his politics would have to change if he wanted to have a political future in the new Lebanon . Druze leader Walid Jumblatt speculates that Syria wanted to silence a man who may have been a witness to Syria?s execution of the Hariri murder.