Jan 25, 2008, 16:04 GMT
Beirut - Standing on top of a badly damaged car a Lebanese woman was shouting, 'It is heart-breaking when the Lebanese disagree among themselves when assassinations like today's take place.'
Lebanese soldiers and policemen inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in an eastern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 25 January 2008. At least six people have been killed in the powerful car bombing in Beirut. A senior member of the police intelligence unit and another officer were among the dead, police say. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
A bomb explosion on Friday had killed at least six people and wounded more than 20 in the Christian Hazmieh district of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
'Assassinations ... killing people every week, wake up you leaders, the country is falling apart,' the angry woman shouted in a state of shock and horror as she looked at the massive damage caused by the explosion that hit the convoy of Wissam Eid, a high-ranking police captain in the security service.
'All the leaders in this country should be punished by the people because the assassinations are taking place due to the political vacuum caused by their differences,' she shouted.
Earlier, reports said the blast had killed 10 people, but the latest police reports spoke of only six casualties. 'The badly burned people who were taken from the scene were counted as dead, that is where the confusion came from,' a police officer at the scene said.
Red Cross volunteers said at least 36 people had been wounded, with nine taken to hospital. Two of the wounded were in critical condition.
Most Lebanese were in shock when they saw the charred bodies trapped in the cars after the bomb exploded in the middle of the morning rush hour.
'I escaped from my car with only light head injuries because I managed to open the door before the car was set ablaze,' Imad al-Hajj who works near the blast site told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
According to a senior security official Eid had been in charge of investigating killings largely blamed on Syria in the past few years.
The 31-year old, who had been a member of the Internal Security Forces (ISF), was killed along his bodyguard in the explosion.
Many of the bombings over the past three years have been blamed by Lebanon's Western-backed parliamentary majority on neighbouring Syria - a charge denied by Damascus.
General Ashraf Rifi, head of the ISF, who was at the blast site, said the car bomb was yet another attempt at destabilizing the country.
'This is a message to the Internal Security Forces following the message sent to the army in December when General Francois el-Hajj was killed in a car bomb,' Rifi told reporters.
'This will not deter us from our mission to protect the country and ensure security.'
Friday's explosion raised fears among Lebanese civilians that the country has become another Iraq, especially because the country has been without a president since November 23.
'The country is heading towards the unknown, and the people in this country are paying a high price ... just like the people of Iraq,' said Francois Hanniney, who owns a shop owner near the blast site.
The scene after the explosion was horrific, with human flesh still burning inside cars, and Red Cross volunteers busy gathering up the pieces.
Local residents and office workers, some screaming, others silent and in shock, could be seen walking between the burning vehicles searching for news about friends and loved ones.
'This is too much, as if we are watching a movie,' bystander Hasna Habib said.
Security officials estimated that the bomb, which left a gaping 5- metre-wide crater in the road, had consisted of at least 50 kilogrammes of TNT.
A senior official from the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon pointed the finger at Damascus.
'This bombing is proof that the Syrian intelligence have infiltrated Lebanese security services,' said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Syria, however, has condemned the killing and blamed 'Lebanon's enemies.'
France also denounced the attack and urged the international community to intervene to stop the cycle of assassinations.
The US embassy in Beirut condemned the bombing as another attempt to destabilize the country.
Some 500 people from Eid's northern Lebanese home village were briefly blocking the highway leading from the city of Tripoli to Syria to protest his death.
'We want all the politicians to take responsibility for his killing,' Wissam Eid, a cousin of the victim, said with an angry voice.
Friday's attack came as Lebanon is grappling with its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Lebanon has also been the scene of a series of bomb attacks in the past three years, targeting mainly opponents of Syria and drawing accusations of Syrian involvement. But Damascus has been vehemently denying any role.
The last such bombing targeted a US embassy vehicle on January 15.
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