BEIRUT-A car bomb killed four people, including a Lebanese police intelligence officer, when it tore through morning traffic in mainly Christian east Beirut on Friday, police said.
Police chief Brigadier-General Ashraf Rifi named the officer targeted in the blast while on his way to work as Captain Wisam Eid. A bodyguard was also killed.
Police earlier put the death toll at six.
Eid, 31, worked for an intelligence unit widely viewed as close to anti-Syrian ruling coalition leader Saad al-Hariri. "Eid had a role in all the files linked to terrorist bombings," Rifi told reporters at the scene.
The police intelligence unit has been closely involved in the U.N.-led investigation into the 2005 assassination of Hariri's father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and in a crackdown on al Qaeda-inspired militants.
Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa said Eid had been targeted twice before. He took up his post after a roadside bomb wounded his predecessor, Samir Shehadeh, in 2006.
The explosion devastated a road near an overpass in the suburb of Hazmiyeh. Firemen sprayed water over blazing cars and smoking debris. A charred corpse was visible in one car. Body parts were strewn on the road. Dozens of vehicles were damaged in the blast, which ripped a large crater in the road.
The attack occurred 10 days after a car bomb damaged a U.S. diplomatic car in Beirut, killing three people and wounding 16.
Last month a car bomb killed the army's chief of operations, Brigadier-General Francois Haj, in east Beirut.
Timur Goksel, a former adviser to U.N. peacekeepers who now lectures at the American University of Beirut, said the last three bombings had shown a marked disregard for civilian lives.
"It seems this captain (Eid) was working on tracking fundamentalists," he said. "In the past bombers have not really targeted military and security personnel, so I'm guessing the culprits are non-Lebanese, maybe groups affiliated to al Qaeda."
Series of Bombings
The majority coalition accuses Syria of being behind Hariri's assassination and many of the 30 or more bombings that have hit Lebanon in the last three years, often directed against anti-Syrian politicians and journalists.
Damascus, which denies any involvement, condemned the latest attack, saying it "targets Lebanon's security and stability". France also denounced the bombing and what it called "these repeated murderous attempts at destabilising Lebanon".
Bombers have also struck at U.N. peacekeepers in the south, while a revolt by al Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants in the north last year further undermined Lebanon's stability.
Apart from its security problems, Lebanon is in the thick of a long-running political conflict pitting the Western-backed ruling coalition against the Hezbollah-led opposition.
The dispute has paralysed government for more than a year and blocked election of a new president, leaving Lebanon with no head of state for the first time since its 1975-90 civil war.
Rival factions have agreed that army commander Michel Suleiman should be the next president, but remain at odds over how to share power in a future national unity government.
Mediation by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has failed to bridge the gulf. He is due to report on his efforts to Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday.
Microsoft VBScript runtime
An exception occurred: 'hz.next'
/_website/pagebase/article.asp, line 345