Blast Kills Lebanese Terror Investigator

Car Bomb Exploded As Top Intelligence Officer Left U.N. Meeting On Former PM's Assassination

(CBS/AP)  A car bomb ripped through eastern Beirut on Friday, killing Lebanon's top anti-terrorism investigator as he returned from a meeting on the probe into the 2005 assassination of a former prime minister, authorities said. Three others died in the blast.

The force of the explosion in the primarily Christian neighborhoods of Hazmieh set a dozen vehicles ablaze and ripped a crater in the asphalt six feet wide and 3 feet deep.

The country's national police chief, Brig. Gen. Ashraf Rifi, confirmed that the car bomb killed Capt. Wissam Eid, who handled police intelligence investigations including "all those having to do with the terrorist bombings" in Lebanon, Rifi said.

Eid had survived two previous assassination attempts, including a bomb targeting his house and a raid in the northern port city of Tripoli, Interior Minister Hassan Sabei told LBC television.

Lebanon's sports minister, Ahmed Fatfat, said the officer was on his way home from a meeting at the headquarters of the U.N. commission investigating the 2005 assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri. The commission's office is in a hilltop village about a 15-minute drive from the site of the explosion.

Eid's bodyguard also was killed, Rifi said.

Casualty figures fluctuated because some bodies were severely damaged and scattered across the area. A police statement later Friday put the total figure at four dead - one still unidentified - and 38 wounded.

Lebanon has been hit by a series of explosions, some of them political assassinations, amid a deepening 14-month political crisis. The explosion came a day after a labor strike that was largely peaceful, and 10 days after a car bomb aimed at a U.S. Embassy car killed three bystanders.

An explosion on Jan. 15 targeted a U.S. Embassy vehicle in northern Beirut, killing four Lebanese and injuring a local embassy employee just ahead of a farewell reception for the American ambassador.

The State Department said that one private American citizen was slightly wounded in that blast. The U.S. withdrew all diplomats from Beirut in September 1989 and did not reopen its embassy until 1991.

A previous car bombing on Dec. 12 in Beirut's suburb of Baabda killed Lebanese army Maj. Gen. Francois Hajj and two other people.

Syria, along with Islamic militants, has been fingered in many of Lebanon's recent bombings, though the targets have become more diverse in the past few months, with the killing of a top army general close to the opposition in December and the attack on the U.S. Embassy vehicle.

The biggest bombing was that which killed Hariri and 22 others, triggering political upheaval and international pressure that forced Syria to withdraw its army from Lebanon. Damascus denied any involvement.

Syria's state-run SANA news agency quoted an unnamed government official Friday as saying the latest attack "targets Lebanon's security and stability."

Lebanon's police intelligence department is close to the government's anti-Syrian majority, and has been frequently criticized by the pro-Syrian opposition.

Friday's bombing was the second attack against the department in less than two years. On Sept. 5, 2006, Lt. Col. Samir Shehade, deputy head of the intelligence department in Lebanon's national police force, was wounded when his convoy was targeted by an explosion in the town of Rmeileh, just north of the southern city of Sidon. The explosion killed four people in his convoy.

Eid was "one of the most important officers in the intelligence department," Sabei said. "They (attackers) are trying to hit the backbone of the Lebanese state, which is security."

As news of the killing spread to Eid's hometown of Deir Ammar north of Tripoli, dozens of villagers burnt car tires and blocked the coastal highway linking Lebanon's second-largest city with the Syrian border. The road reopened a few hours later.

Television footage from the attack scene in Beirut showed a huge plume of black smoke rising from street and orange flames shooting up into the sky.

Several cars burned in a blackened area some 20 yards wide, near a highway overpass. Firefighters struggled to put out the flames. Dozens of cars were also wrecked in a nearby parking lot.

Graphic TV footage showed at least three bodies, one slumped behind the wheel of a delivery truck that was ripped apart by the force of the explosion, and two others on the ground under a highway trestle.

[bobacorn]

"They (attackers) are trying to hit the backbone of the Lebanese state, which is security."

Well the Israelis have bombed everything else in Lebanon. Hmmmm ... I wonder ...

[mcv57]

Nostradumus is correct: "Terror, terror, terror, . . . This war is going to last 47 years (including the nuclear fall-out). According to the Bible, the only peace that the world will see is when the BEAST will take control.

[prinzowhales]

***, ***, ***, ***, ***, ***, ***...can you believe that these people censor the word, "ga.ys"?

[prinzowhales]

Christians and Jews have lived in peace in Moslem lands for centuries...until the coming of the Zionists and then people were played off against people and those who sided with the occupiers and invaders were hated and despised...just as the Tories were hated and run out of America for supporting a King against their neighbors.

The same imperial interests who did this are at work in America today...pitting women against men, *** against straights, believers against non-believers, creationists against evolutionists and trying to put blacks, whites and browns at each others throats to manipulate the electorate and continue their Corporatist rule while turning people''s minds to the consideration of unnecessary things.

[prinzowhales]

Say what you want about Hezb''allah...they freed Lebanon from the Israeli occupation...they forced the Zionist killers to retreat weeping with their little curly tails between their legs when they invaded Lebanon the last time when they left a million bomblets as they retreated to murder more Lebanese children and farmers.

Hezb''allah stood up for the people of Lebanon and has Sunni and Christian support.

If the Lebanese Army will not fight to protect Lebanon then Hezb''allah will...and more and more Lebanese recognize this...

[ladyjaneg]

Cto how we think, the instability in Lebanon isn''t actually about religion, it''s 98% political, between pro-Syrian and Anti-Syrian.

[feddupp]

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in that evil day, and having done all, to stand." EPHESIANS 6:12 & 13

We ARE struggling against not just men, but their ideas and IDEALS--that of making the whole Earth an Islamic state--complete with Sharia LAW!! That means beheading for certain crimes, cutting off hands for theft, etc. A CHILLING thought!!

Thank GOD that we know what happens in "the end--" that The Lord comes and rights every wrong!

"Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!" REVELATION 22:20

[telecom_1]

A rebel state within a legitimate state. Hezbola is a rebel proxy army in Lebanon who threatens the Lebanese army and the national peace of Lebanon. Hezbolah is represented by a machine gun death weapon on their flag and they went into Israel last year kidnapping Israeli soldiers sparking a war and causing Lebanon to suffer by hezbolahs rebellious unwanted terrorists acts. Hezbolah is on a terrorists campaign to kill leaders in Lebanon so they can create chaos, thats their only hope that war and bloodshed will give them a purpose to exist as a illegitimate proxy army competing with the true Lebanese army.

[demslie]

Why do we try so hard not to offend Muslims? If they don''t like you, they will chop your head off and slaughter your family, all in the name of ISLAM. Christians cannot pray in American schools but Muslims can. Christians teach tolerance while Muslims quote ISLAM as permission to commit worldwide Genocide. IRAN and AL-Qaeda state their intention to destroy Western Civilization but Democrats get mad at Bush for agreeing on more UN sanctions. Know who the enemy is.

[ladyjaneg]

It''s so saddening to hear that such a beautiful country is so unstable. I hope they can solve their political problems soon and peacefully.


Btw, good morning everyone! :)