Agence France-Presse,
An anti-Syrian lawmaker and five other people were killed in a car bombing in a Beirut suburb on Wednesday, plunging deeply divided Lebanon into more chaos just days before a key presidential poll.
Antoine Ghanem's murder was the latest in a string of attacks since 2004 against prominent critics of Lebanon's neighbour and former powerbroker Syria, with colleagues quick to point the finger of blame at Damascus.
World powers condemned the attack as a blatant bid to destabilise Lebanon ahead of Tuesday's parliamentary session to choose a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, saying it exacerbated a months-long political crisis.
The United States led the global chorus of outrage and warned Syria and Iran against trying to destabilize their smaller neighbor.
“I strongly condemn today's horrific assassination of Lebanese member of parliament Antoine Ghanem,” said President George W. Bush, who cited “a tragic pattern” of attacks against champions of “an independent and democratic Lebanon.”
“We will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Lebanese people, as they resist attempts by the Syrian and Iranian regimes and their allies to destabilize Lebanon and undermine its sovereignty,” he said in a statement.
Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations also denounced the car bombing.
The European Union condemned the killing as a “contemptible act,” while urging the Lebanese government to go ahead with the hotly contested September 25 presidential contest.
Syria denied any involvement, saying the bombing was a “criminal act” aimed at undermining efforts at a rapprochement with Lebanon.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora urged the United Nations to investigate the killing of Ghanem as part of its probe into similar murders of anti-Syrian figures since former premier Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in 2005.
Rescuers were seen pulling corpses from blackened and mangled cars, some still ablaze. Facades of nearby buildings were wrecked, with shattered glass on the streets of Sin el-Fil, a Christian suburb on the eastern outskirts of the capital.
A police spokesman said six people were killed, including the MP, and 56 others injured in the powerful blast. Two of the deputy's bodyguards were among the dead, Ghanem's daughter Mounia told AFP.
People wailed and screamed at hospitals where some of the injured were transported.
“Tony is gone, Tony is gone. My tall blond son is gone,” wailed a woman, as she tore at her hair and raised her hands to the sky outside the Lebanese Canadian Hospital.
She said her son, Tony Daou, 23, was a bodyguard of Ghanem.
Ghanem, 64, a lawyer, had been an MP since 2000. He belonged to the Christian Phalange party of former president Amin Gemayal, whose own son, industry minister Pierre, was killed last November.
The party said Ghanem's funeral would be held on Friday and called for a general strike the day before. The education ministry said all schools and unversities would stay shut both on Thursday and Friday.
Fearing for his life, Ghanem had fled into exile following the assassination in June of another anti-Syrian MP, and only returned to Lebanon on Sunday.
Fellow Christian MP Antoine Andraos said Ghanem had called him “earlier in the afternoon to ask me where he could get a bullet-proof car.”
Ghanem was the eighth member of the anti-Syrian majority to be assassinated since the February 2005 murder of five-time prime minister Hariri.
Parliament is due to meet next Tuesday amid a nearly total deadlock between the Western-backed majority and the pro-Damascus opposition.
Ghanem's death reduced the majority to 68 members out of the now 127-member house, with numbers set to play a key role in the presidential vote.
“This is an attack aimed at sabotaging all efforts to reach a solution to the current political crisis,” Butros Harb, an MP and presidential candidate, added. “You cannot separate this killing from the presidential election.”
The country has been on edge since the February 14, 2005 Beirut seafront bomb blast that killed Hariri, in an attack that was widely blamed on Syria and forced it to end three decades of military domination.
Damascus has denied any connection with the Hariri killing or any of the others since then.
“The Security Council condemns this new bombing as an attempt to destabilise Lebanon in this very crucial period,” said France's UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, current president of the 15-member UN Security Council.
Lebanon's political crisis was exacerbated when pro-Syrian opposition forces, led by the Shiite movement Hezbollah, withdrew six ministers from Siniora's Western-backed cabinet in November.
Analysts say failure by the political foes to choose a consensus presidential candidate could spark a dangerous power vacuum or even lead to the naming of two rival governments — a grim reminder of the final years of the 1975-1990 civil war when two competing administrations battled it out.
Parliament speaker Nabih Berri has called for parliament to convene on Tuesday for the election, but confusion still reigns over whether the vote will actually take place on that date.
A candidate, who by convention comes from the Maronite Christian community, needs a two-thirds majority to be elected president from a first round of voting, while a simple majority is enough in any later round.
An election can be held right up until the final deadline of November 24, but if the president's seat is left vacant, his powers are automatically transferred to the government.
