of George Hawi today
An anti-Syrian politician was killed in Lebanon today when a bomb ripped through his car.
George Hawi, a former leader of the Lebanese Communist Party, died instantly in the blast in the Wata Musaitbi neighbourhood of Beirut, witnesses and security sources said.
The bombing came two days after parliamentary elections brought victory for an alliance opposed to Damascus's role in the country.
Rafi Madoyan
"After the explosion, the car kept going and then I saw the driver screaming and he jumped out of the window. We rushed to the car and saw Hawi in the passenger seat with his guts out," said a witness.
The 400-gram charge was under the passenger seat of Mr Hawi's Mercedes and detonated by remote control, sources said. His driver apparently escaped serious injury.
It was the second killing of an anti-Syrian figure in Beirut this month.
Newspaper columnist Samir Kassir was killed on June 2nd when a similar explosion destroyed his car outside his home. The United States said after Mr
Kassir's killing it had information about a Syrian hit-list targeting Lebanese leaders.
Syria has denied the claim and denounced Mr Hawi's killing. Damascus bowed to global pressure to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April after anti-Syrian protests swept the country when former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated in a truck bombing in February.
A UN team that visited Lebanon certified that Syria had ended its 29-year military presence. But UN chief Kofi Annan ordered the team back after Mr Kassir's killing amid claims by Lebanese anti-Syrian opposition figures that Syrian intelligence agents were still running free in the country.
Mr Hawi pictured last year
A UN investigator questioned the head of Lebanon's presidential guard as part of an international investigation into Mr Hariri's killing, a UN official said.
Syria's critics in Lebanon have urged Colonel Mustafa Hamdan, the most senior of Lebanon's pro-Syrian security chiefs to remain in power since Mr Hariri's murder, to step down.
Mr Hawi's politician stepson, a critic of Damascus, pointed blamed remnants of the pro-Syrian security agencies, though Lebanon's top security chiefs have resigned in recent months.
"The security agencies continue to kill the democrats and are trying to assassinate democracy in Lebanon and the independence uprising," Mr Rafi Madoyan told reporters, referring to the protests after Mr Hariri's death.
"It is not just George Hawi, there are many others on the hit list."
Himself under pressure from some politicians to resign, Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud promised to investigate. "Lebanon . . . is ready to continue co-operating internationally to uncover the real criminal hand that tampers with its security," he said in a statement.