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Deadly bombing in Beirut
25/01/2008 12:08 - (SA)
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| Firefighters try to extinguish burning cars at the site of an explosion in Beirut. (Mahmoud Tawil, AP) |
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Beirut - A powerful bomb targeting a security convoy killed at least 10 people and wounded many more in a Christian area of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday, local television reported.
An army official put the death toll at three and said that Captain Wissam Eid, a member of the Internal Security Forces, was one of the dead.
Flames engulfed cars, trapping several people as firefighters battled to extinguish the fires and security forces cordoned off the area.
Thick black smoke curled into the sky as ambulances rushed to the scene, an area of office buildings and parking lots on a highway leading out of Beirut.
Cars in one parking lot were set ablaze and badly damaged by the force of the blast. Local TV showed close-up pictures of at least one charred body in a burnt out vehicle.
Ten days ago a United States embassy vehicle was targeted in a car bomb attack. No one in the US car was killed in that attack, but three other people who were driving in the area died.
That bombing was the first such attack against US interests in Lebanon since the mid-1980s and came during a visit to the Middle East by US President George W Bush.
Lebanon was grappling with its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
The country had been without a president since pro-Syrian head of state Emile Lahoud stepped down on November 23 with no elected successor because of a standoff between the Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition.
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