US declares Lebanese consul general in Detroit persona non grata: report

ISTANBUL: The US declared Ibrahim Charara, Lebanon’s consul general in Detroit, Michigan, persona non grata, Anadolu Agency reported, quoting Lebanese media.

Lebanon’s Embassy in Washington told the newspaper Annahar that the US State Department had formally notified it of the decision to expel Charara.

Neither the US State Department nor Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry had issued an official statement on the matter.

The decision followed US media coverage of old social media posts attributed to Charara.

In a Nov. 2 report, the Washington Free Beacon cited a 2021 post that it said showed the diplomat “praised Hezbollah’s 1983 suicide attack on the US Marine Corps barracks, which killed 241 American service members.”