A powerful car bomb has injured the outgoing Lebanese defence minister, and killed at least two other people. Police said Elias Murr was taken to hospital with minor wounds while one of his entourage was seriously injured. Television footage showed two wrecked vehicles and a bloodied casualty in severe shock being helped from a car. | "Mahmoud, we're gonna boom Murr. Get the good explosives!" "Boss, we used all the good explosives on the last two guys! All we got left is the cheap stuff!" "Damn! Well, it'll just have to do until we get a new shipment from Damascus!" |
| "Boss, why we gonna boom Murr? He dances like a puppet!" "He's out. What use is he to us anymore? Things're tight. We gotta cut payroll!" |
Mr Murr is the son-in-law of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and has been put forward as a loyalist representative in the cabinet being formed after the opposition victory in recent elections. "I know the country is going through a difficult phase and we all have to be steadfast until this phase passes," he said in a statement from his hospital bed broadcast on Lebanon radio. The latest blast came as Prime Minister-designate Fouad Siniora continued talks to build a coalition. It follows a month after leftist politician George Hawi and journalist Samir Qasir, both from the anti-Syrian camp, were killed in separate bombings. Correspondents say those attacks re-ignited anti-Syrian feeling in Lebanon after the opposition's success in elections.