Intelligence officer among four killed in Lebanon blast

 

A senior intelligence officer investigating killings largely blamed on Syria was slain along with three other people in a car bombing in the Lebanese capital on Friday, security officials said.
 
Captain Wissam Eid, 31, a member of the Internal Security Forces (ISF), and his bodyguard were among those killed, a security official told AFP. He said 38 other people were wounded, with nine taken to hospital.

 

“Eid was a key member of the ISF and was involved in many investigations concerning bombings in Lebanon,” the official said. “He was involved in sensitive probes and this is a major loss for us.”

 

The official added that Eid had in February 2006 narrowly escaped another attempt on his life when someone threw a grenade in front of his Beirut home.

 

Many of the bombings over the past three years have been blamed by Lebanon”s Western-backed parliamentary majority on neighbouring Syria, a charge denied by Damascus.

 

General Ashraf Rifi, head of the ISF and who was at the site of the blast in a Christian suburb of Beirut, said the car bomb was yet another attempt at destabilizing the country as it grapples with its worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

 

“This is a message to the Internal Security Forces following the message sent to the army in December when General Francois el-Hajj was killed in a car bomb,” Rifi told reporters.

 

“This will not deter us from our mission to protect the country and ensure security.”

 

Friday”s explosion took place shortly after 10 am (0800 GMT) near a highway overpass in Hazmiyeh and in an area that houses a number of office buildings.

 

Flames engulfed cars, trapping several people as firefighters battled to extinguish the fires and security forces cordoned off the area.

 

Local residents and office workers, some screaming and others suffering from shock, could be seen running amongst the blazing vehicles searching for friends and loved ones.

 

“It was an apocalyptic vision,” said Ghandour Mashlab, a real estate agent who was at the site of the explosion.

 

An AFP photographer at the scene saw two bodies, one of which had been blown onto a nearby overpass by the force of the blast. The other corpse was charred, trapped inside a car, one of four totally destroyed in the attack.

 

The security official estimated that the bomb, which blasted a five-metre (16-foot) wide crater into the road, consisted of at least 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of TNT.

 

A senior official from the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon pointed the finger at Damascus.

 

“This bombing is proof that the (Syrian) mukhabarat (intelligence) have infiltrated Lebanese security services,”

the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

 

“There is no other specialist than Eid in the region who was as competent when it came to investigating the series of bombings that have shaken Lebanon in recent years,” he added.

 

Syria, however, condemned the killing and blamed “Lebanon”s enemies”.

 

The United States, Britain, France, Egypt and other countries also denounced the attack.

 

“This attack is the latest in a series over the last three years targeting those who are working to protect the Lebanese and secure Lebanon”s independence and sovereignty,” the US embassy in Beirut said.

 

Britain”s Foreign Office said it can not be allowed to derail the probe into the string killings in Lebanon.

 

If “some people think that these assassinations can sink a solution to the current (political) crisis to their advantage, they are wrong,” said Egypt”s Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit, without elaborating.

 

About 500 people from the northern Lebanese village from which Eid came briefly blocked the highway leading

from the city of Tripoli to Syria in protest at his death.

 

“We want all the politicians to take responsibility for his killing,” said Wissam Eid, an angry cousin of the victim.

 

Lebanon has been without a president since pro-Syrian head of state Emile Lahoud stepped down on November 23 with no elected successor because of a standoff between the majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition.

 

It has also been the scene of numerous bomb attacks in the past three years, targeting mainly anti-Syrian personalities.

 

The last bombing targeted a vehicle from the US embassy on January 15. Three passers-by were killed in that blast.

 

In February 2005, five-times prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed by a huge bomb on the Beirut seafront. The backlash against his killing resulted in Syria withdrawing its forces from its tiny neighbour after nearly 30 years.

Picture: Scene from this morning’s explosion in Hazmieh (Anwar Amro / AFP)