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General among four killed in Lebanon car bomb
AFP, December
12, 2007
by Nayla
Razzouk
BEIRUT, Dec 12,
2007 (AFP) - A Lebanese army general was among at least four
people killed on Wednesday in a car bomb that also injured
seven others in a Christian suburb on the outskirts of
Beirut, a security source told AFP.
"General
Francois El Hajj was killed in the blast and several other
people were injured, including his driver," said the source,
who did not wish to be identified.
The official
said Hajj was tipped to replace the army's top commander
General Michel Sleiman, who is the frontrunner to become
Lebanon's next president but whose election has been blocked
by a standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian camps.
"He was a great
man, a kind man, who was very intelligent," the official
said, referring to Hajj.
The general,
who was on his way to the defence ministry when the blast
took place shortly after 7:00 a.m. (0500 GMT), was head of
operations in the army.
He gained
prominence last summer during a fierce 15-week battle
between the army and an Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist group at
a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Earlier a
Lebanese Red Cross official told AFP that four people were
killed and seven were wounded in the morning rush-hour blast
that rocked the suburb of Baabda, southeast of Beirut.
An AFP
correspondant at the scene said the blast took place outside
the Baabda municipal building, causing severe damage to the
face of the structure and destroying several cars parked
nearby.
Ambulances
rushed to the site to evacuate the casualties and
firefighters extinguished cars set ablaze, as police and
army vehicles cordoned off the area.
Several
officials said Hajj's assassination was linked to the battle
at Nahr al-Bared camp.
"My first
reaction is that this is linked to Nahr al-Bared," said MP
Butros Harb, an MP with the ruling Western-backed majority.
"I am not sure
that this is not a message to the army in order to
destabilise it and remove the halo around it at a time when
the commander in chief has been tipped to become president,"
he added.
Many Arab and
Western embassies are in Baabda, home of the presidential
palace which has been vacant since November 23 when the
incumbent Emile Lahoud ended his term and left as feuding
politicians bickered over his successor.
Buildings
within a 100-metre (-yard) radius of the site of the
explosion had their windows blown out and people rushed to
the scene looking for their loved ones.
"Let me
through, let me through, I want to find my father," one
woman cried out as police kept her at bay.
The blast comes
amid high tension in Lebanon which has been rocked by a
number of political assassinations in the past two years
that have killed several anti-Syrian MPs and politicians.
On Tuesday a
parliament session to elect the army chief as Lebanon's
president was postponed for the eighth time, amid a
tug-of-war between politicians and fears that a vote could
be delayed until March.
The standoff
between pro- and anti-Syrian camps marks Lebanon's worst
political crisis since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war
and there has been fear that it could spill out into
violence.
Lebanon has
been without a president since Lahoud ended his term on
November 23.
The ruling
coalition and the opposition have agreed to give the post to
General Sleiman, but they are bickering over how to amend
the constitution to allow for his election and over the
shape of a new cabinet.
Lebanon has
been on edge since the February 14, 2005 Beirut seafront
bomb blast that killed former premier Rafiq Hariri, in an
attack that was widely blamed on Syria and forced it to end
three decades of military domination.
Damascus has
denied any connection with the Hariri killing or any of the
others since then against anti-Syrian figures. |
