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Beirut blast kills anti-Syria MP
19/09/2007 19:16 - (SA)
Beirut - An anti-Syrian lawmaker was killed in a car bombing in a Christian suburb of Beirut on Wednesday, shaking Lebanon just days ahead of a crucial election in the deeply divided country.
The killing of Antoine Ghanem - one of at least five people reported dead in the bombing - was the latest in a string of attacks in recent years against prominent critics of Lebanon's neighbour and former power broker Syria.
"He has died," Joseph Abu Khalil, a senior official from Ghanem's Phalange Party, told AFP after the attack in the Sin el-Fil neighbourhood in the eastern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.
The explosion took place less than a week before parliament is due to meet on September 25 to elect a successor for Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud amid a near-complete political deadlock between the Western-backed ruling majority and the pro-Damascus opposition.
Rescue officials said at least five people had died and 30 were injured.
Television footage showed rescuers pulling burning corpses from one of several burnt-out and twisted cars, some still ablaze, and facades of nearby buildings wrecked, with shattered glass on the streets.
Ghanem, 64, a lawyer, had been a member of parliament since 2000 and was the eighth member of the ruling anti-Syrian majority to be assassinated since the 2005 murder of former billionaire prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
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