Two killed in Lebanese port city blast
An explosion devastated a business centre in Lebanon’s Christian heartland early today, a stronghold of the anti-Syrian opposition, killing two people and wounding two more.
The second explosion in less than a week in a Christian area sparked fears of the return of the sectarian violence that plagued Lebanon during the 1975-90 civil war.
Opposition MPs for the area denounced the bombing as an attempt to undermine security. One blamed government security agencies’ negligence and another called on supporters not to be carried away by attempts to sow sectarian strife.
“Each citizen should be his own guard,” legislator Nematallah Abi Nasr said in urging people to be vigilant.
The explosion happened shortly after midnight at the Alta Vista Shopping Centre on the Kaslik stretch near Jounieh, the main Christian port city about 10 miles north of Beirut. Police believe the bomb was at least 44lbs of explosives. The centre was closed at the time of the blast.
The explosion shattered shop windows across the area, which is known for its posh boutiques and nightlife. Aluminium panel sheeting at the centre’s ceiling was torn, car alarms were set off and shop shutters were blown out. Red Cross and Civil Defence workers searched by hand through the debris or used dogs to search for casualties as residents rushed from buildings along the stretch to inspect the damage.
One body was retrieved and wrapped in a blanket on the ground floor of the centre. Another was taken away later. Police said they were migrant labourers from the Indian subcontinent.
LBC TV, the leading station in the country, said earlier that three people were killed and eight wounded in the explosion. But the station later revised the figure to two dead and four wounded. It identified the dead as an Indian and a Pakistani and the injured as a Sri Lankan woman, a Sri Lankan man and two Lebanese, including one who suffered very light injuries.
The explosion came amid major political turmoil in Lebanon in the wake of the February 14 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops to east Lebanon and Syria. Demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, although largely peaceful, have kept tension high between the pro-Syrian and the anti-Syrian camps.
Early on Saturday, a car bomb in a shopping area in a northern Christian suburb of Beirut injured nine people.
The intensity of the political battle over Syria’s troops in Lebanon has raised fears of a return to sectarian violence of the 1975-90 civil war. So far, however, the political factions do not conform to religious boundaries, with Christians and Muslims on both sides of the debate.
The Christian heartland is a main bastion for the anti-Syrian opposition.
MP Farid Khazen, who bolted out of the pro-Syrian Cabinet after the assassination of Hariri to join the opposition, placed the blame for negligence on Lebanese security agencies.
He said security chiefs should resign, saying the attack would only increase the people’s determination to drive them out of office. “What are they thinking? That they leave the country this way? We will not beg you to stay,” said Khazen at the scene.
The chiefs of Lebanese security agencies have been the main target of the opposition, which is refusing to join a Cabinet before they are sacked. They accuse the security chiefs of at least negligence in the assassination of Hariri and in the investigation into the crime, which the opposition has blamed on the Lebanese government and its Syrian backers. Both governments have denied involvement.
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