Bomb kills Lebanese politician

BEIRUT // A bomb tore through a car in the hills east of Lebanon's capital last night, 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.

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 Mr Aridi got into his Mercedes sedan in front of his house in the Druse-populated hills near the resort town of Aley, 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 bomb tore off the roof of the vehicle.

The bomb's target was unusual. Mr Aridi, like his party, was among those Lebanese politicians allied with Syria, a nation that had long dominated its politically fractured neighbour. A string of bombs have largely targeted politicians opposed to Syria's influence in Lebanese affairs, starting with the Beirut truck bombing that killed the former premier Rafik Hariri in 2005. Those attacks were blamed by many on Syria, though it has denied involvement.

Lebanon's political stand-off 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, fighters of the Syrian-backed Hizbollah overran pro-government strongholds and fought an anti-Syrian Druse faction in the region where the bomb went off yesterday. 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," Mr Abu Ibrahim said on Hizbollah's al-Manar television, noting that the conciliatory atmosphere in recent weeks prompted party officials to relax their security measures. *AP