BEIRUT (AFP) – Two people were killed when a bomb ripped through a shopping center in a Christian area north of Beirut, the second explosion since the assassination last month of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri plunged Lebanon into political turmoil. Police confirmed that the blast, which occurred near the port of Jounieh 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Beirut was caused by an explosive device. The dead were two foreigners, whose identity has yet to be confirmed, while three were wounded, police said Wednesday. The blast followed an explosion in another Christian district early Saturday, which injured 11 people, and seemed certain to heighten fears of a resurgence in the sectarian violence that devastated Lebanon during its 1975-1990 civil war.

AP, BEIRUT, Lebanon – Buoyed by their success in forcing Syria to withdraw some troops, elements of the Lebanese opposition have called for the return of two Christian leaders who played a major role in the country’s bloody civil war.Nematallah Abi Nasr, a Christian legislator, said Monday that he and some colleagues were working to secure the release from prison of Samir Geagea, who led the powerful Lebanese Forces militia during the 1975-90 war, and the return from exile in France of Gen. Michel Aoun, the former Lebanese army commander.Abi Nasr and five other opposition legislators – including a Sunni Muslim, a Shiite Muslim and a Druse – have signed a petition for a bill that would allow Geagea to receive amnesty.

By Lin Noueihed BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s pro-Syrian prime minister said on Monday he was determined to forge a national unity government, even though anti-Syrian opposition leaders have refused to join any lineup before general elections.  Political divisions deepened over the weekend when the opposition dismissed Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud’s call for talks after a bomb wounded 11 people in a Beirut suburb, raising fresh fears of a return to Lebanon’s violent past. Opposition leaders instead urged Prime Minister Omar Karami, who resigned last month but was reappointed by parliament to form a new government, to make do without them and quickly pick a cabinet to lead Lebanon to elections due in May. he polls may have to be postponed if the political stalemate persists, but Karami stuck to his guns.

BEIRUT (AFP) – Bahia Hariri, sister of slain former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, is increasingly seen as his possible political heiress, charged with carrying on a mission that has marked politics here for the past 15 years. Within hours Saturday of an explosion in a Christian neighborhood that injured 11 people, she was at the site of the blast to reassure residents, telling them not to afraid. “They (the perpetrators) won’t succeed in terrorizing us,” she declared. With mourning for her brother, killed in a bomb blast February 14, behind her, Bahia Hariri — a deputy from the southern city of Sidon — has also become more prominent in her pronouncements backing the Lebanese opposition.

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR,  BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 19 – On an unseasonably mild day last August, a small group of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s closest political allies could tell from his flushed face and subdued manner that something awful had happened in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he had been summoned to a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad. The four men, all Lebanese Parliament members, recalled waiting for him at the Beirut mansion of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, in the so-called garden, basically a carport paved with concrete bricks, plus one short orange tree in a faux terra cotta tub. Mr. Hariri – wearing an expensive blue suit and a white shirt, his tie loosened – lumbered over mutely and flung himself onto one of a dozen white plastic chairs, his head lolling back and his arms dangling over the edges.

By Lin Noueihed , BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s anti-Syrian opposition dismissed the president’s call for talks on Saturday, deepening political divisions hours after a bomb raised fresh fears of a return to the country’s violent past.  Investigators sifted through the rubble left by the blast, which wounded 11 people and gutted the ground and first floors of a residential block in a Christian suburb of eastern Beirut. The bomb had been left in or under a car belonging to a Lebanese-Armenian man who lived in the building, but it was not clear why, Lebanese security sources said.