Growing tension over a judicial probe into last year's Beirut port blast threatens to push Lebanon into yet another political crisis, testing Prime Minister Najib Mikati's new government as it struggles to dig the country out of economic collapse.
More than a year since the explosion ripped through Beirut, killing more than 200 people, Judge Tarek Bitar's efforts to hold senior officials to account for suspected negligence are facing mounting political pushback.
The row has also underlined the major sway of the heavily armed, Iran-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah, which has, accusing him of conducting a politicised probe picking on certain people. Hezbollah and its Shi'ite ally Amal have pulled their ministers out of government at times of political conflict, a move that would torpedo the Sunni-led cabinet by stripping it of Shi'ite representation.Mikati has previously said Lebanon could not bear the loss of a second judge after the first investigator was removed in February when a court accepted a complaint questioning his impartiality.
Hezbollah was "showing its brute influence and force and that definitely reflects badly on Mikati government", added Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
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