BEIRUT, May 7: Lebanon’s most prominent anti-Syria Christian opposition leader returned to Beirut on Saturday, ending more than a decade in exile 11 days after the last Syrian soldier withdrew from the country.

“Today is a day of joy, a day for jubilation. I’m back,” Michel Aoun told reporters at Beirut airport after a chartered plane flew him, his family and top aides from France.

“A black cloud oppressed Lebanon for 15 years. Today the sun of freedom is shining. I’m returning to look to the future and rebuild Lebanon together,” he said, flanked by his daughters and grandchildren.

The former general, dressed in a grey suit with a blue tie, waved to a crowd of cheering supporters as he emerged from the aircraft.

From the airport he will be driven to a central Beirut square, scene of anti-Syrian rallies in the past three months, to address tens of thousands of supporters wearing orange and waving Lebanese flags gathered in Martyrs’ square.

On the eve of Gen Aoun’s return, a bomb ripped through a commercial district of the Christian port town of Jounieh north of Beirut, wounding 28 people. Gen Aoun’s defeat at the hands of a Syrian-led assault on his powerbase in and around Beirut on Oct 13, 1990, marked the end of the Lebanese civil war.—Reuters