A senior security official is among at least eight people killed in a huge car bomb attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Lebanese leaders today pledged to press ahead with a divisive election for president, to be held in Parliament in the coming days, despite the car bombing assassination of an anti-Syrian MP.

A powerful bomb killed a pro-government parliament member and four others today in a Christian suburb east of the Lebanese capital Beirut, security officials said.

The coffin of Pierre Gemayel was passed overhead through the crowd into the church, handed from mourner to mourner, while in the square nearby hundreds of thousands of supporters unleashed their anger, burning pictures of Syria’s president and his allies in Lebanon.

Lebanon began to bid farewell to an assassinated young Christian politician today, and his anti-Syrian allies sought to turn an expected huge turnout at his funeral into a massive show of force against opponents led by the militant Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and their Syrian backers.