DRAMATIC

Lebanese PM Resigns, Citing Plot Against His Life

Saad Hariri lashed out at Iran and Hezbollah in televised remarks announcing his resignation.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation in a televised address from Riyadh on Saturday, saying he believes he is the target of an assassination plot. “I feel... that my life is being targeted,” the two-time prime minister said, slamming Iran’s “grip” on the country. “The evil that Iran spreads in the region will backfire on it,” he said, going on to accuse Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in the region, of putting Lebanon in “the eye of the storm,” the Associated Press reports. “We are living in a climate similar to the atmosphere that prevailed before the assassination of martyr Rafik al-Hariri,” he said. Rafik Hariri, Saad Hariri’s father, was killed in 2005 while serving as prime minister. Hariri’s announcement comes after Saudi State Minister for Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan made similar remarks regarding Hezbollah earlier this week, calling for its “toppling” and promising “astonishing developments.” Hariri met with the Saudi minister prior to his bombshell announcement. He vowed that Lebanon would “rise as it had done in the past” and “cut off the hands that wickedly extend into it.”