Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, the head of Lebanon's intelligence division of the domestic security forces, and seven others were killed on Thursday in a car bombing in Beirut. There is speculation that the culprits, who also left dozens more wounded in the country's deadliest attack in years, are tied to the Syrian civil war.
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The late al-Hassan recently led an investigation into a pro-Syrian Lebanese politician and a close aide to Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as bombing plots in Lebanon, reports the Washington Post.
Friday's blast was also a reminder of Lebanon's grim history, when the 1975-1990 civil war made the country notorious for kidnappings, car bombs and political assassinations. Even since the war's end, Lebanon has been a proxy battleground for regional conflict, and the Mediterranean seaside capital has been prey to sudden, surprising and often unexplained violence shattering periods of calm.
"Whenever there is a problem in Syria they want to bring it to us," said Karin Sabaha Gemayel, a secratary at a law firm a block from the bombing site, where the street was transformed into a swath of rubble, twisted metal and charred vehicles.
"But you always hope it will not happen to us. Not again," she said.
Read more at the Washington Post.
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