A bomb tore through a car in the hills east of Lebanon’s capital on Wednesday, killing a Druse politician who recently helped reconcile rival factions within that minority community, police said.
The bomb that killed Sheik Saleh Aridi, a senior member of the Lebanese Democratic Party, was planted in his car in the village of Baissour, police said.
It was the first political assassination in about a year in Lebanon and came less than a week before planned reconciliation talks among rival Lebanese factions. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora contacted Druse leaders and joined them in calling for calm.
Six other people were injured in the blast, which went off as Aridi got into his Mercedes sedan in front of his house in the Druse-populated hills near the resort town of Aley, police said.
Police said the charge was stuck under the car’s body, below the driver’s seat, and blew up as the car rolled. Officials believe it was triggered either by remote control or by a motion sensor.
The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of government regulations.
The bomb tore off the roof of the vehicle. Television footage showed investigators sifting through the blackened hulk of the vehicle with flashlights.
The US was “deeply concerned” about the bombing and its support of the Lebanese government was “unwavering,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The bomb’s target was unusual. Aridi, like his party, was among those Lebanese politicians allied with Syria, a nation that had long dominated its politically fractured neighbor. A string of bombs have largely targeted politicians opposed to Syria’s influence in Lebanese affairs, starting with the Beirut truck bombing that killed former premier Rafik Hariri in 2005.
Those attacks were blamed by many on Syria, though it has denied involvement.
Lebanon’s political standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian factions boiled over into fighting in Beirut and the Druse hills east of the capital in May.
During those clashes, Shiite fighters of the Syrian-backed Hezbollah overran Sunni strongholds supporting the government and fought an anti-Syrian Druse faction in the region where the bomb went off on Wednesday.
An Arab-brokered agreement defused the tension, leading to the election of a new president and the formation of a national unity Cabinet that includes the two major blocs.
Nazih Abu Ibrahim, a colleague of Aridi in the party’s political bureau, said the aim of the assassination was to rekindle violence between rivals in the Druse-inhabited mountains. The area is controlled by two main Druse factions, the Lebanese Democratic Party led by Talal Arsalan and the Progressive Socialist Party of Walid Jumblatt.
“It was a bloody message,” Abu Ibrahim said on Hezbollah’s al-Manar television, adding that the conciliatory atmosphere in recent weeks had prompted party officials to relax their security measures.
In addition to the historic rivalry between those two factions for control of the Druse community, the two parties are also on opposite sides of the divide over Syria. Arsalan is allied with the Syrian-backed Hezbollah and Jumblatt is a prominent leader of the anti-Syrian camp.
Since the May fighting, the two leaders reconciled and worked toward unity for the minority Druse sect and preventing infighting.
Aridi was a key liaison between the two sides and helped mediate an end to the fighting between Hezbollah and Jumblatt’s men in the region around his hometown.
The Druse are a secretive offshoot Islamic sect with communities in Lebanon, Syria and Israel.
Jumblatt went to the village after the explosion to express solidarity and to attempt to defuse tensions. He said whoever was behind the bombing did not like the conciliatory air among political factions nationwide in recent weeks.
Arsalan was out of the country. His deputy, Ziad Choueiri, said the attack aimed to undermine security.
“Stability and civil peace are red lines. We will not allow them to be crossed,” he said on al-Jadeed TV from the scene.
The bombing came amid efforts to cement reconciliation among the factions and defuse sectarian tension. In addition to next week’s conference called by the president, Sunni and Alawite factions in Tripoli reached a truce and entrusted security in the city to the Lebanese army.
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