US expels Lebanese consul in Detroit over Hezbollah posts

Shafaq News- Washington

The US State Department has declared Ibrahim Charara, Lebanon's consul general in Detroit, persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country by November 8 over social media posts attributed to him about Hezbollah.

The posts, according to media outlets, included praise for the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanese media reported on Saturday.

In an investigation published on November 2, the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative US news website, accused Charara of praising the attack, citing a 2021 post in which he wrote that the "heroic resistance" had ended the "American military occupation" of Lebanon with a single strike.

The decision followed the Free Beacon's coverage of Charara's attendance at an Arab American community event in Dearborn, Michigan, in late October. The event backed Abdul El-Sayed and other Democratic candidates days before the November 3 midterm elections, in which El-Sayed won a US Senate seat for Michigan. The website criticized the consul for attending and republished remarks attributed to him about the Beirut attack.

Neither Charara nor Lebanon's Foreign Ministry has commented.

On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut housing US and French troops serving in the Multinational Force in Lebanon, killing 241 US service members, 58 French soldiers, and six Lebanese civilians.

Washington designates Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The group has never claimed or denied responsibility for the 1983 attack.