Beirut car blast kills top security official

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

“The martyrdom” of Maj Gen Wissam al Hassan, the head of the national police intelligence unit, was announced by The National News Agency last night.

The bomb wounded dozens of others, sheared the balconies off apartment buildings and sent bloodied residents staggering into the streets in the most serious blast the city has seen in more than four years.

The explosion — which ripped through the street where the office of the anti-Damascus Christian Phalange Party is located near Sassine Square in Ashrafiyeh — did not appear to target any political figure in Lebanon’s divided community but it occurred at a time of heightened tension between Lebanese factions on opposite sides of the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Phalange leader Sami al Gemayela, a staunch opponent of Syrian president Bashar al Assad and a member of parliament, condemned the attack. “Let the state protect the citizens. We will not accept any procrastination in this matter, we cannot continue like that. We have been warning for a year. Enough,” said Gemayel, whose brother was assassinated in Nov 2006.

The war in Syria, which has killed 30,000 people in the past 19 months, has pitted mostly Sunni insurgents against Assad, who is from the Alawite sect linked to Shi’ite Islam.

Lebanon’s religious communities are divided between those supporting Assad and those backing the rebels trying to overthrow him.

At least eight people were killed and at least 78 wounded, the state news agency said, quoting civil defence officials. Several cars were destroyed and the front of a multi-storey building was badly damaged.

In the aftermath, residents ran about in panic looking for relatives while others helped carry the wounded to ambulances. Security forces blanketed the area.

In scenes reminiscent of the dark days of Lebanon’s civil war, ambulances ferried the wounded to several hospitals, where doctors, nurses, and students waited for casualties at the doors.

The hospitals put out an appeal for blood donations.

An employee of a bank on the street pointed to the blown-out windows of his building.

“Some people were wounded from my bank. I think it was a car bomb. The whole car jumped five floors into the air,” he said.

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati said the government was trying to find out who carried out the attack and said the perpetrators would be punished.

The prospect that Syria’s war might spread to Lebanon has worried many people here, and fighting broke out in February between supporters and opponents of Assad in the northern city of Tripoli.

Syria has played a major role in Lebanese politics, siding with different factions during the 1975-1990 civil war. It deployed troops in Beirut and parts of the country during the war and stayed until 2005.

The last bombing in Beirut was in 2008 when three people were killed in an explosion which damaged a US diplomatic car.