BEIRUT, 13 July 2005 — Lebanon’s pro-Syrian Defense Minister Elias Murr survived an apparent assassination attempt with light wounds when a car bomb exploded outside Beirut yesterday, killing at least two and injuring nine others.
He was driving from his home in an upscale Christian suburb 10 kilometers north of the capital when an estimated 40 kilograms of TNT exploded in a nearby parked car.
Seven cars were completely destroyed by the blast, which left a scene of devastation for hundreds of meters around that has become all too familiar for Beirut residents.
One woman, Sihan, told how the windows of her apartment were blown out by the blast.
“Luckily, we were all in the kitchen and no one was hurt. We were lucky but who knows how long that will last?” she said.
Murr, 43, the Christian deputy prime minister and son-in-law of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, was taken with superficial burns and a hand injury to Serhal Hospital, from where he issued a statement aimed at “reassuring the Lebanese”.
“Thank God I am in good health and I wish a speedy recovery for all the bodyguards and the wounded. We must support them as the country is going through a very difficult period,” he said from his hospital bed.
Lahoud himself lashed out at the attackers, calling them “enemies of Lebanon” who wanted to kill Murr. “Those who tried to assassinate Defense Minister Elias Murr are enemies of Lebanon who do not distinguish between Lebanese whatever their allegiance and position, be they opposition or loyalist (to Syria),” said a statement.
“What is important to them is to damage the country’s stability and security, in order to provoke conflict ... and maintain Lebanon in the cycle of violence and fear.” This was the third apparent attack on a leading political figure within the space of less than two months. However, the previous two bombs that killed a journalist and an ex-communist leader targeted anti-Syrian figures.
Syria, which pulled its troops out of Lebanon in April amid relentless international pressure following the February assassination of anti-Damascus former Premier Rafik Hariri, fiercely condemned the new attack.
“Syria considers this terrorist act as one link in a series of explosions and assassinations aimed at destabilizing Lebanon and weakening its national unity,” the official SANA agency quoted an Information Ministry official as saying.
There were also condemnations from the European Union, Britain, Russia and Jordan.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt claimed that the attack was aimed at silencing a man who could potentially give incriminating evidence to international investigators still probing the Hariri murder. “There is a plot to eliminate all the witnesses or everyone able to give information on the assassination of Rafik Hariri,” Jumblatt told TV channel LBCI.
“We still live under the former politico-security regime ... When you accept compromises, you suffer the consequences.” Rafik Hariri’s son Saad, who heads the Future Movement bloc that won recent parliamentary elections, spoke of a “hand that wants to destabilize Lebanon and kill politicians and journalists”. Interior Minister Hassen Sabeh described the attack as a message aimed “at destabilizing Lebanon and forcing fear, desperation and instability on its people.
