Red Cross ambulances evacuated at least a dozen casualties, after a powerful explosion tore through rows of parked cars, near a major highway overpass, targeting a top Lebanese police investigator.Firefighters worked feverishly to douse the blazing wreckage of twisted automobiles, as thick plumes of acrid black smoke choked the air. Lebanese security officials say top police investigator Wissam Eid, the apparent target of the blast, died immediately.
Charles Ayoub, the Editor of Lebanon’s Ad Diyar newspaper told al Arabiya television that at least 30 to 40 kilos of a TNT were used in the bombing.Lebanese investigators, using sniffer dogs, combed through the rubble of the explosion, looking for clues, but sources say that water used to douse the blaze was making the search extremely difficult.
BEIRUT, Lebanon
Last month, a powerful car bomb in Beirut killed Brig. Gen. François al-Hajj, who was a top contender to be the country’s next army chief and was also the operational commander during the three-month siege against the Islamic militants in the refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
Earlier this month, the bomb that exploded next to an American Embassy vehicle killed at least three civilians and wounded many other people, including an American bystander and an embassy employee. Also this month, a roadside bomb exploded near a United Nations peacekeepers’ vehicle in the south of the country, slightly wounding two soldiers.
Hours after the explosion Friday, in the neighborhood of Hazmieh, several cars were blackened and still burning.
Nada Bakri reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Graham Bowley from New York.
Fri Jan 25, 7:39 AM ET
Lebanese soldiers secure the scene near a damaged car with a covered body in it at the site of explosion in Beirut, Lebanon Friday, Jan. 25, 2008. A car bomb ripped through one of Beirut’s Christian neighborhoods Friday, killing at least five people including a top police official who had been investigating terrorist bombings, officials said. The force of the blast, which struck midmorning in Hazmieh on the Lebanese capital’s eastern edge, set a dozen vehicles ablaze and ripped a crater in the asphalt two meters (six feet) wide and a meter (3 feet) deep. Another dozen vehicles were wrecked in a nearby lot. The country’s national police chief, Brig. Gen. Ashraf Rifi, confirmed that the blast was a car bomb that killed Capt. Wissam Eid, a senior police intelligence official. Eid was an engineer who was handling ‘very important’ files, including ‘all those having to do with the terrorist bombings’ in Lebanon, Rifi said.
Fri Jan 25, 7:54 AM ET
Damaged cars are seen at the site of an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon Friday, Jan. 25, 2008. A car bomb ripped through one of Beirut’s Christian neighborhoods Friday, killing at least five people including a top police official who had been investigating terrorist bombings, officials said.
An investigator checks the scene of explosion with a sniffing dog in Beirut, Lebanon Friday, Jan. 25, 2008. A car bomb ripped through one of Beirut’s Christian neighborhoods Friday, killing at least five people including a top police official who had been investigating terrorist bombings, officials said.
Fri Jan 25, 7:59 AM ET
Lebanese Red Cross volunteers remove a body from the scene of a bomb attack in Beirut. A senior intelligence officer investigating killings largely blamed on Syria was slain with nine other people in the bombing
Fri Jan 25, 10:48 AM ET
People gather on a bridge to watch as rescue teams work at the scene of a bomb attack in Beirut. A senior intelligence officer investigating killings largely blamed on Syria was slain with nine other people in the bombing.
Fri Jan 25, 6:08 AM ET
People gather at the site of explosion in Beirut, Lebanon Friday, Jan. 25, 2008. An explosion apparently targeting a police official rocked a Christian neighborhood of Beirut on Friday, killing up to ten people and setting several vehicles ablaze inside a blackened crater in the middle of the
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