• Home
• /
• World

Blast rattles Lebanon’s fragile political system

The authorities have called a day of national mourning for those killed in Friday’s powerful explosion during rush-hour in Ashrafieh, a predominantly Christian district of the Lebanese capital.

Officials said internal intelligence chief General Wissam Al Hassan was among the eight dead — in one of the highest-profile killings since the 2005 assassination of prime minister Rafiq Al Hariri. Another 86 were wounded.

The Red Cross put the toll at four dead and 110 injured. “This is not the final toll, as we still need to see what happens to the critically wounded,” Red Cross spokesman Ayad Mounzer said.

The Lebanese cabinet held an emergency meeting on Saturday morning to discuss the fallout from the bombing, after key opposition groups had called on the government to step down. “The government must leave and we call on Prime Minister Najib Mikati to resign immediately,” Ahmad Hariri, secretary-general of the Future movement, said on Friday night.

Hassan was close to Hariri’s son, Saad, who is an opposition leader and hostile to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

Mikati’s office said on Saturday the “size and tragic consequences of this heinous crime is a source of severe pain and sadness to the prime minister”, and would be the focus of the cabinet meeting.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Al Zohbi condemned what he called a “terrorist, cowardly” attack.

But both Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt, Lebanon’s Druze leader, accused the Syrian president of being behind the bombing. “We accuse Bashar Al Assad of the assassination of Wissam Al Hassan, the guarantor of the security of the Lebanese,” Hariri, also a former premier, told a Lebanese TV station.

“The Syrian regime is expert in political assassinations,” he said. “Our response needs to be political. A president who burns Syria and is the executioner of Damascus does not care if Lebanon burns,” Jumblatt said.

The explosion occurred only 200 metres from the headquarters of the Christian party, the Phalange, which is also anti-Damascus. “This regime, which is crumbling, is trying to export its conflict to Lebanon,” Phalange MP Nadim Gemayel said of the Damascus government.