The New York Times-20080126-Car Bomb Kills a Top Lebanese Terrorism Investigator
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Car Bomb Kills a Top Lebanese Terrorism Investigator
A powerful car bomb killed one of Lebanon's top terrorism investigators and three other people in eastern Beirut on Friday. It was the latest in a long series of attacks aimed at Lebanese politicians, journalists and security officials.
The investigator, Capt. Wissam Eid, was killed just before 10 a.m., when a bomb in a parked car near an overpass detonated as he drove past in the Hazmieh District, which is mostly Christian.
The blast made a three-foot-deep crater in the pavement and set a dozen cars ablaze. Captain Eid's bodyguard and two civilians -- one of them in a car -- were also killed, and three dozen people were wounded.
The attack suggested a quickening pace and a widening circle of targets in Lebanon's persistent political violence. A car bomb aimed at an American Embassy vehicle killed three passers-by 10 days ago. Another bombing wounded two United Nations soldiers in southern Lebanon this month, and one of Lebanon's top army generals was killed by a car bomb last month.
The country has been without a president since late November, when Emile Lahoud ended his term without an agreement on a successor. Tensions have risen as negotiations continue between the hobbled government majority, supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia, and the opposition, led by Hezbollah and backed by Syria and Iran.
Captain Eid, 31, a communications engineer who survived an assassination attempt in 2006, worked in a unit that is widely seen as being close to the government majority.
He specialized in tracking cellphone calls used in explosions, according to a Lebanese security official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing government protocol.
Captain Eid played a crucial role in gathering evidence on the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, as well as bombings since then. The Hariri investigation has been a central point of contention for Syria -- which was implicated in the initial reports -- and its allies in the Lebanese opposition.
Members of the American-backed Lebanese majority have often accused Syria of being involved in the Hariri killing and the ones that followed it.
But Captain Eid was also involved in another aspect of the increasingly complex cycle of violence here. Last May, he took part in a raid on a the militant group Fatah al Islam in the northern city of Tripoli.
That raid led to a three-and-a-half-month battle between the Lebanese Army and the militants, who were in a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli. The army finally routed the militants in September.
Shaker al-Absi, the leader of Fatah al Islam, released an audio recording this month vowing to attack the Lebanese Army for its role in the conflict.
The bombing on Friday was the second strike on Captain Eid's unit in less than two years. In May 2006, a bombing aimed at the unit's deputy head of intelligence killed four people in a convoy.
After the attack on Friday, blood could still be seen on the highway overpass near where the bomb exploded, and smoke rose from the blackened ruins of the burned cars.
I was driving and suddenly heard a loud boom, said Rana Najm, 22, a business major at the Lebanese American University who was driving to school when the bomb exploded near her car. I did not know what happened. I woke up and found myself in the car covered with blood, and people around me were screaming and cars burning.
[Illustration]PHOTO: The wreckage of a car bombing in eastern Beirut on Friday that killed a high-ranking terrorism investigator and three others. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS)