Bombing in Lebanon (Archive photo)
Photo: Reuters
Lebanese politician killed in blast
Pro-Syrian member of opposition party dies in car bomb explosion southeast of Beirut
A bomb tore through a car in the hills east of Lebanon's capital on Wednesday, killing a Druze politician from a pro-Syrian party, police said. The bomb that killed Sheik Saleh Aridi, a senior member of the Lebanese Democratic Party, was planted under his car in the village of Baissour, police said.
It was the first political assassination in about a year in Lebanon and came less than a week before planned reconciliation talks among rival Lebanese factions. The official National News Agency said the bomb went off just as Aridi was getting into his car near his house in the Druze-populated hills near the resort town of Aley. The report said five men and a woman were injured. Police had no further details, as investigators arrived and troops sealed off the area. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of government regulations.
The bomb's target was unusual - a politician in support of Syria, a nation that had long dominated its politically fractured neighbor. A string of bombs have largely targeted politicians opposed to Syria's influence in Lebanese affairs, starting with the Beirut truck bombing that killed former Premier Rafik Hariri in 2005.
Those attacks were blamed by many on Syria, though it has denied involvement Lebanon's political standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian factions boiled over into fighting in Beirut and the Druze hills east of the capital in May.
During those clashes, Shiite fighters of the Syrian-backed Hizbullah overran Sunni pro-government strongholds. An Arab-brokered agreement defused the tension and a new president was elected and a national unity Cabinet was formed that included the two major blocs.
The latest bombing came amid efforts to reconcile the factions and defuse sectarian tensions. In addition to the conference called for by the president, Sunni and Alawite factions in Tripoli reached a truce and entrusted security in the city to the Lebanese army.
The last high-profile political assassination was of an anti-Syrian legislator a year ago in another Beirut suburb. One of the deadliest bombings in Lebanon in the last three years occurred on Aug. 13, when a roadside bomb exploded near a bus in the northern port city of Tripoli, a Sunni stronghold, killing 18 soldiers and civilians.
