Ten killed in Beirut seaside blast

June 14, 2007

On Wednesday evening, a bomb exploded at a popular seaside district of Manara, Beirut, killing Parliament Member Walid Eido, his son and eight other people, while injuring a dozen more just outside Manara's amusement park. This was the sixth bomb being dentonated in and around Beirut in less than four weeks. The blast is believed to have been caused by a bomb-rigged car.

Walid Eido was a member of parliamentary majority leader MP Saad Hariri's Future Movement and one of the most vocal critics of what he repeatedly called "Syria's relentless interference" in Lebanon. Saad Hariri, son of the slain former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, issued a televised speech after the bombing. He was quoted as saying:

It's the same evil fingers and the apparatus of evil that are planting terror in all of Lebanon.

He called on the Arab League to boycott what he called "a terrorist regime," an obvious reference to neighboring Syria. Despite repeating accusations on Syria, the country's President Bashar al-Asad denied that Syria participated in any wrong doing in Lebanon.