Region | Lebanon
Links between Lebanon killings probed
Lebanese police were sifting through debris and burned cars on Saturday, searching for clues at the site of a car bomb that killed one of Lebanon's top terrorism investigators.
- Agencies
- Published: 21:15 January 26, 2008
- Image Credit: EPA
- Policemen carry the coffin of Wissam Eid during a funeral procession at the general security headquarters in Beirut.
Beirut: Lebanese police were sifting through debris and burned cars on Saturday, searching for clues at the site of a car bomb that killed one of Lebanon's top terrorism investigators.
Investigators were also trying to determine if the latest bombing was part of a string of attacks that have targeted leading anti-Syrian politicians in the past three years, a security official said on Saturday.
A powerful car bombing on Friday killed Captain Wissam Eid, one of the country's top terrorism investigators who was probing assassinations of prominent anti-Syrian figures and a series of other attacks in recent years, including the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Eid, 31, worked for the police intelligence agency which is closely tied to the Western-backed government and had survived two previous assassination attempts. Police said the death toll in the attack had risen to five, from four, and there were 42 wounded.
"Security and judicial police investigators are probing a possible link between Captain Eid's killing and a series of assassinations that have rocked Lebanon in the last three years," the official told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
Road to independence
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Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, whose Western-backed government is locked in a fierce power struggle with the Syrian-backed opposition, pledged yesterday to pursue "the criminals who planned and carried out this crime which is aimed at destroying the state security institutions." "The road to independence is fraught with dangers and filled with sacrifices," Siniora said.
The blast, which struck midmorning in the Christian neighbourhood of Hazmieh in eastern Beirut, was the latest in a series of explosions, some of them political assassinations, amid a deepening 14-month political crisis.
It came a day after a labour strike that was largely peaceful, and 10 days after a car bomb aimed at a US Embassy car killed three bystanders. Police investigators yesterday collected fingerprints and bits of shrapnel and debris from the car at the bomb site in a bid to discover clues, including who owned the car.
National Police Chief Brig Gen.Ashraf Rifi vowed yesterday to continue the fight against terrorist groups as he paid tribute to Eid.
"Our choice is to defend this country. Our decision is to continue our march to confront the empire of death and terror," Rifi said at a ceremony to honour Eid and his slain bodyguard Osama Mereib at the police headquarters in Beirut.
Eid was "one of the most important officers in the intelligence department," Interior Minister Hassan Sabei said.
"This is the third time that they tried to kill him. He was very kind, he had an important position, but to me he will always be a child," Eid's mother said earlier.
Thousands of Lebanese, some waving Lebanese and black flags, had earlier greeted the convoy as it inched its way from nearby Tripoli, where funeral prayers were held in the mosque's courtyard.
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