Beirut Blast Kills Syria Foe, 9 Others
An explosion, apparently from a bomb-rigged car, rocked Beirut's seafront Wednesday, killing an anti-Syrian lawmaker and nine others, security officials said. The 65-year-old lawmaker, Walid Eido, was the seventh opponent of Damascus to be killed in two years in this conflict-ridden country.
Eido's son, two bodyguards and six others were also killed in the explosion, and eleven others were wounded, security officials said.
Lebanese television showed images of total destruction, with extensive damage to several buildings and a large number of police and military patrolling the scene. Numerous bodies were also seen around the blast site, some of them charred, still sitting inside of burned out cars.
A car was in flames and black smoke was seen rising from a narrow street off the main waterfront in Manara, which is in the Muslim sector of the capital. The Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. TV station said the explosion came from a bomb-rigged car, a method that has been used to assassinate opponents of Syria over the past two years.
A woman, covered in blood, was seen being pulled away from the seen by local residents. She was screaming in agony. Another man was being carried away as police sealed off the area, which is near an amusement park and a military club.
Car and shop windows were blown out up to 70 yards from the blast site, which was on a side street near the beach.
The explosion was the latest in a series to hit Lebanon in the last three weeks as Lebanese troops battled Islamic militants in a Palestinian refugee camp in the northern part of the country.
Even before the refugee camp crisis unfolded, Lebanon had been wrestling with a growing political and sectarian divide, with supporters of the Western-backed government pitted against a pro-Syria and pro-Hezbollah faction.
Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many of its allies, is a legitimate political force in Lebanon — which garners strong support from inside Syria and Iran. Both countries strongly deny providing any material support for militant operations.
The fissure in Lebanon's society first started cracking wide open with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a targeted bombing that killed him in his car. Eido was a friend and political ally to Hariri.
Syrian and pro-Syrian factions in Lebanon have been accused of the assassination by many in the world community, and present Lebanese leader Fuad Saniora is pushing hard to get a United Nations investigation into the murder rolling.