At least three people were reported killed after a car bomb exploded in a South Beirut Hizbullah stronghold early Saturday.
Witnesses said one passerby was killed and several wounded, while the two occupants of the vehicle, a black BMW, were burned beyond recognition. They said the bomb went off as soon as the car was started.
The explosion took place at Hadi Nasrallah Street, a busy main road into the capital which bears the name of the late son of Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, killed while attacking Israeli forces in south Lebanon before their 2000 pullout.
Security forces who arrived at the scene of the blast were seen gathering up the limbs and body parts of the car's two occupants and cordoning off the area.
Police said the car is registered to an Ahmed Saleh, of Brital in the Bekaa Valley, and he is believed to be one of the two dead occupants. Later, a Hizbullah press release eulogized Saleh as a "martyr," an indication that he was a member of the Lebanese group.
Saleh had been a member of Hizbullah's armed wing since 1982, when the group was founded, and had "taken part in many training sessions and participated in many (anti-Israeli) attacks", a Hizbullah statement said.
It placed "the entire responsibility on Israel in this crime, which we consider flagrant aggression against our people and country", and added: "this crime will not go unpunished." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
