Bomb in Beirut Kills Politician, a Critic of Syria and Hezbollah

A powerful bomb shook central Beirut Friday morning, killing at least six people, officials said, and injuring dozens more. Among the dead was Mohamad B. Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister and ambassador to the United States who was a vocal critic of the government in neighboring Syria and its ally, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Chatah was the intended target of the bomb. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which was reminiscent of a string of unsolved bombings that have targeted anti-Syrian politicians over the past decade. Mr. Chatah was a prominent member of the Future bloc, the mainly Sunni party headed by Saad Hariri, son of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose death in a 2005 bombing in Beirut sparked the March 14 protest movement that helped end Syria’s 29-year military presence in Lebanon. Nohad al-Mashnouq, a member of Parliament in the Future bloc and a friend of Mr. Chatah’s, confirmed in an interview that he had been killed. The attack deepened the sense of instability in Lebanon, which is sharply divided over the war in neighboring Syria, with the Future bloc and its allies backing the opponents of President Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah supporting him. The country has been without a functioning government for months because of a related political stalemate. Several car bombs have exploded in the southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has many supporters, with Syrian insurgents or allied Lebanese militants being widely blamed for the attacks.

But Friday’s bombing was the first to tear through Beirut’s shiny renovated downtown since Mr. Hariri’s death, dealing a psychological blow to Beirut’s perennially resilient residents. The attack brought the violence to the heart of Beirut’s business district, bustling and decked in Christmas decorations, leaving the streets deserted. “This is a time when this plaza would be crowded, full of hope and colors, and now it’s black with this criminal act,” said Elie Ward, the manager of the nearby Sultan Ibrahim restaurant, watching as investigators in white jumpsuits examined a charred car chassis lying by a reflecting pool outside an office complex. “But Beirut is sending a message to all the world, that she will stay alive.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/world/middleeast/beirut-explosion.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0