Wedding-Funeral for First Ever Suicide Bomber Turns into a Sectarian Brawl

Following are excerpts from a report on a Lebanese celebration of the “wedding-funeral” of the first ever female suicide bomber, Sana Mehaidli, known as “The Bride of the South,” who detonated a car bomb near an Israeli military convoy in South Lebanon in 1985. The report aired on Al-Jadid/New TV on July 26, 2008.

Reporter: It all began in the Sin Al-Fil [neighborhood of Beirut]. Sana was present, and her comrades saluted her. For the last time, she breathed the air of Beirut and strolled through its streets, reaching the headquarters of her party [the Syrian Social Nationalist Party], where she met people she had left without bidding farewell.

The convey of “the bride” set out on the Al-Ouzai road to Khalde, where SSNP members were waiting to see her. From there, the pioneer of female self-sacrificing fighters left for the south, escorted by hundreds of cars, bearing flags of the party and of the National Resistance Front.

In Maghdouche, the town of the martyr Milad Saliba, Sana was wedded in a great ceremony. The band was playing in her honor, and the crowd was dancing. A bride, in her wedding dress, raised her gun above her head. The procession was showed with rice and roses, and sprayed with rose water. The church bells chimed in her honor.

In ‘Anqoun, there was a crowded reception from balconies, from the rooftops, in the streets, and in cars. The Shiite seminary was packed when Sana arrived. The party chairman could not complete his address, because somebody decided to raise a flag of the Amal party from the podium, and a group of vandals began to destroy the place, leading some fo the participants to leave the premises. SSNP members protected Sana’s coffin and the guests, whlie gunfire could be heard outside the seminary. After things calmed down, the SSNP members accompanied their heroic martyr to the village cemetery, where she was buried, amid continuous disturbances by the village youth, who were the only ones who did not appreciate the honor that Sana bestowed upon the village from which she came.