US declares Lebanese diplomat persona non grata after post praising Hezbollah's 1983 bombing
Lebanese media reported that the Lebanese Embassy in Washington had received formal notification of the Trump administration's decision.
According to the US State Department, Lebanon's consul-general in Detroit, Ibrahim Sharara, has been deemed persona non grata due to social media posts praising Hezbollah's 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, which resulted in the deaths of 241 American service members. Sharara has been instructed to depart the United States and is anticipated to return to Lebanon on Sunday.
The issue came to light earlier in the week following the conservative news outlet Washington Free Beacon's publication of a social media post from 2021, allegedly authored by Sharara, lauding the attack and asserting that "the heroic resistance ended the American military occupation of Lebanon in a single blow." However, a source familiar with Sharara's affairs revealed to Lebanese broadcaster LBCI that the post had been posted from an outdated social media account that had been compromised several years prior.
The source also clarified a photograph featuring Sharara and Abdul El-Sayed, who was recently chosen to serve in the US Senate from Michigan. According to the source, Sharara and El-Sayed were merely seated beside one another at an annual gathering organized by an Arab American organization and share neither personal nor political connections.
Lebanese media reported that the Lebanese Embassy in Washington had been formally informed of the Trump administration's choice.
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