Lebanon-based sources reported on Saturday that a direct assassination attempt targeting resigned Prime Minister Saad Hariri was thwarted a few days ago. Assassination plotters downed monitoring systems while Hariri’s convoy was on the move, sources added. In a Saturday speech broadcast, Hariri announced his resignation saying that he fears for his life. “We are living in a climate similar to the atmosphere that prevailed before the assassination of martyr Rafik al-Hariri. I have sensed what is being plotted covertly to target my life,” Hariri said. Hariri also stressed that “Iran’s hands in the region will be cut off,” emphasizing the fact that “wherever Iran is involved, there is nothing but devastation and chaos.” “Iran has a strong desire to destroy the Arab world,” he said in his televised resignation speech. Hariri warned that “the evil that Iran sends to the region will eventually backfire on Tehran.” “Iran controls the region and the decision-making in both Syria and Iraq,” he added. In his statement, Hariri said Iran was “losing in its interference in the affairs of the Arab world”, adding that Lebanon would “rise as it had done in the past” and “cut off the hands that wickedly extend into it”.