One killed, 28 wounded in new Lebanon blast

One person was killed and 28 wounded in a bombing in a Christian section of Beirut, the latest in a string of blasts to hit the Lebanese capital this year, police said.

Police identified the dead man as an elderly Lebanese of Armenian origin and said three of the wounded remained in hospital Saturday.

The blast struck just before midnight (2100 GMT) on Friday in a small side street in the Jeitawi quarter of east Beirut.

Investigating magistrate Rashid Mezher said a resident saw two young men place two suitcases between two parked cars before running off. Her son, who ran across the alley to warn customers at a nearby cafe, was wounded in the blast, judicial sources said.

The force of the blast, estimated at some 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds) of TNT equivalent, collapsed the roof of the cafe and damaged the facade of a neighbouring office block.

It was the 12th bomb attack in Lebanon since the February assassination of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri in a massive car bombing on the Beirut seafront in which 20 other people also died.

Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, in New York for the UN General Assembly, said he had no doubt that there was a single hand behind the bombings.

"They're trying to divert attention and point the finger elsewhere," he told Lebanese media, without actually saying who he meant.

Syria, the former power broker in Lebanon, has been widely accused in Lebanon of being behind Hariri's murder and others of the attacks, charges that Damascus strongly denies.

Beirut MP Atef Majdalani, a supporter of Siniora's government, said: "The series of attacks won't end until the truth comes out about those who planned the killing of Rafiq Hariri."

The blast came the day after Lebanon's central bank lifted the bank secrecy of the Beirut accounts of eight Lebanese and Syrian figures at the request of a UN commission of inquiry into Hariri's murder.

"The special commission on the fight against money-laundering chaired by the central bank governor has decided to waive the bank secrecy of the accounts of nine figures," a banking source told AFP, asking not to be identified.

The list includes Syrian Interior Minister General Ghazi Kanaan, who previously served as Syria's military intelligence chief in Lebanon, and his successor, General Rustom Ghazaleh.

Ghazaleh held the post until April 2005 when Syria's army pulled out of its smaller neighbour after a 29-year presence in the face of intense domestic and international pressure following Hariri's killing.

Among the Lebanese figures are former pro-Syrian MP Nasser Qandil, and Ad-Diyar newspaper's chief editor Charles Ayyub, who is considered close to Ghazaleh.

Four Lebanese intelligence chiefs who were arrested in early September and charged with premeditated murder, attempted murder, carrying out acts of terrorism and possession of firearms and explosives, make up the rest of the list.

They are President Emile Lahoud's republican guard chief Mustafa Hamdan, former general security boss Jamil al-Sayed, ex-internal security head Ali al-Hage and former army intelligence director Raymond Azar.

The under-fire president, who was also in New York for the UN General Assembly, blamed the latest bombing on "enemies of Lebanon" determined to "sow fear each time the state makes progress towards stability," the official ANI news agency reported.

Source: AFP