Car bomb kills former Lebanese PM

The blast, which reports say killed about nine people, caused widespread damage and left about 20 cars ablaze.

The bomb went off beside the derelict St Georges Hotel, on the seafront, creating a huge crater.

The assassination comes at a time of rising tension between Syria, Lebanon's political master, and members of the opposition, a BBC correspondent says.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad condemned Monday's attack as a "terrible criminal act".

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa said it was a "terrorist act" and expressed fears about the political fallout, AFP news agency reported.

Beachfront attack

Mr Hariri, who was also an MP, attended a session at parliament in central Beirut shortly before the blast.

He was apparently heading home along the beachfront in a convoy when the explosion happened just before midday local time (1000 GMT), in a busy area full of hotels and banks

Members of his convoy are believed to have been killed in the blast. A former minister who was in the convoy is said to have been seriously injured.

The force of the blast left vehicles smouldering and shop fronts blown out and blackened.

Local television pictures showed a burning man fighting to get out of a car through its window, falling to the ground and being helped by a bystander.

Several young women were seen with blood running down their faces.

Lebanese security forces cordoned off the area with yellow tape as rescue workers and investigators combed the scene.

Leading politician

Mr Hariri has been the leading Lebanese politician since the end of the civil war in 1990, and prime minister for most of the last 15 years.

He was also a self-made billionaire businessman.

He resigned in October amid differences with Lebanon's pro-Syrian President, Emile Lahoud.

Since then, he had been considered part of the opposition, although he never formally attended their gatherings, the BBC's Kim Ghattas in Beirut says.

Mr Hariri had recently joined calls by opposition politicians for a withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

He was expecting to make a comeback in upcoming legislative elections in May.

Last October, a former minister and member of the opposition was injured in a car bomb attack in Beirut, in which his bodyguard was killed.

Our correspondent says many Lebanese were expecting more such attacks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4263893.stm

A car bomb has killed at least nine people, including former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, on Beirut's seafront, Lebanese police said.

Al-Hariri's motorcade was blown up on Monday as it passed along an exclusive section of the city's waterfront Corniche.

The explosion close to the St George Hotel gouged a deep crater out of the road, ripped facades from luxury buildings and left half a dozen cars ablaze on streets carpeted with rubble.

Lebanon's official news agency ANI said initially that Hariri was rushed to hospital with major injuries. Staff at the American University hospital said he was admitted to intensive care there but died shortly afterwards.

Weeping supporters of al-Hariri gathered outside the hospital, many banging their heads in signs of grief.

The blast occurred just as a convoy of four black limousines escorted by jeeps was passing, witnesses told reporters. Sirens wailed as ambulances raced to hospital carrying the wounded while television showed doctors and nurses treating them.

Prime Minister Umar Karama went to the scene, as did MPs who broke off a parliamentary session.

Al-Hariri, who resigned from government last October, has recently joined calls by the opposition for Syria to quit Lebanon in the run-up to general elections in May.

Lebanon is due to hold elections in the spring, and the explosion took place as the country and its political master Syria are under intense international pressure, particularly from the United States, over the dominant role of Damascus in the affairs of its smaller neighbour.

UN Security Council Resolution 1559 adopted in September last year calls for a halt to foreign interference in Lebanon and a withdrawal of foreign troops - a direct message to Syria which has about 14,000 troops on Lebanese soil.

Mixed legacy

Al-Hariri will leave a mixed legacy. His admirers saw him as the architect of the country's post-civil war reconstruction programme and as the saviour of its war-ravaged economy during his time as prime minister.

For his detractors he was a spendthrift, whose administration dragged an already feeble economy deeper into debt and used sky-high interest rates to stabilise the Lebanese pound.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad condemned the attack and called it a "terrible criminal act", the official news agency SANA reported.

Telephonic claim

Aljazeera's office in Beirut received a phone call from a person claiming to be speaking on behalf of a group called al-Nasir and Jihad Group in al-Sham countries [Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine].

The caller said the group has "announced carrying out the fair penalty against the infidel agent Rafiq al-Hariri", adding that it was a "martyrdom operation" whose details would be announced later.

"We have never heard about this group before," Ghassan bin Jiddo, director of Aljazeera's office in Lebanon, said. "The person is not a native-Arabic speaker. He was speaking Arabic with a foreign accent."

The situation is very tense in Beirut, Jiddo said.

"Demonstrations have been staged in Beirut streets, particularly al-Hamra Street," he said. "Slogans have been chanted in support of al-Hariri," he added.

Al-Hamra Street and nearby shops have been closed, Jiddo said, adding that news of the assassination has upset both pro-and-anti al-Hariri supporters in Beirut.

Syrian reaction

Speaking to Aljazeera after Monday's Beirut blast, Mahdi Dakh Allah, Syrian information minister, said, "The assassination of al-Hariri is painful news. It is a black day in Syria, Lebanon and the entire Arab world."

He accused "enemies of Lebanon" of being behind the attack. "[The perpetrators] are those who do not want stability, national unity and power in Lebanon, particularly because this action comes amid international pressure on Lebanon and Syria."

Responding to suggestions of a Syrian hand in the assassination, Dakh Allah said such accusations were " ridiculous" and "aimed at misleading the world through the media".

"Syria has good relations with all Lebanese people, including the opposition. Therefore, these accusations are incorrect and aim at distracting the world away from the real perpetrators of this crime."

Ministers survive

Incidentally, two former ministers, Samir al-Jisr and Basil Flaihan, who had been reported dead in the explosion, are both still alive, al-Jisr and aides of Flaihan said.

Al-Jisr, 61, a former education minister in the governments of
al-Hariri, rang local media to say he was alive and well after the blast which killed his longtime boss.

Flaihan, a former economy minister in his 40s, was wounded but not killed, aides said.

Flaihan's wife, who was in Geneva, said she had received a
phone call saying her husband had been taken to hospital but had no immediate word on his condition.
Aljazeera + Agencies

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