Three killed during bomb attack on US embassy car in Beirut

AN EXPLOSION targeted a US embassy vehicle yesterday in northern Beirut, killing at least three Lebanese and injuring an American bystander and a local embassy employee, US and Lebanese officials said.

The blast, which damaged the armoured SUV and several other vehicles, took place just ahead of a farewell reception for the American ambassador at a hotel in central Beirut.

No Americans were in the car, which was carrying two Lebanese employees of the embassy, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.

There were conflicting accounts of the death toll, with the State Department, from information provided by the US embassy in Beirut, saying four people had been killed and Lebanese authorities saying that only three had died.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the bombing a “terrorist attack”.

“The US will, of course, not be deterred in its efforts to help the Lebanese people, to help the democratic forces in Lebanon, to help Lebanon resist force and interference in their affairs,” she told reporters in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The bombing — which came as President George W Bush and Ms Rice toured the Middle East — was the first attack on US diplomatic interests in Lebanon since the 1980s.

A 1983 truck bombing killed 241 American service members at the US Marine barracks at Beirut airport. The same year, a suicide bomber hit the US Embassy there, killing at least 17 Americans, including top CIA officials.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called an emergency cabinet meeting after yesterday’s blast.

The country has seen a series of bombings in the past three years targeting anti-Syrian figures, journalists and most recently, a top Lebanese army general.

The powerful blast could be heard across the Lebanese capital, sending gray smoke billowing over a Mediterranean coastal highway in the predominantly Christian Dora-Karantina neighbourhood.

The US Embassy immediately cancelled a banquet for departing Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, scheduled for last night at Beirut’s Phoenicia Hotel.

A senior Lebanese police official said the blast was caused by a bomb placed between two rubbish containers on the side of a narrow road adjacent to the main highway, which detonated as the car passed.