Lebanon blast sparks angry protests

20 Oct 2012, 7:52 pm   -   Source: AAP
A car bomb blast in the Lebanese capital has reportedly killed at least eight people. (AAP)

A car bomb blast in the Lebanese capital has reportedly killed at least eight people. (AAP)

The Lebanese cabinet is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting as the country's opposition calls for Prime Minister Najib Mikati to resign.

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Protesters have burned tyres and set up roadblocks around Lebanon in anger over a massive car bomb that killed a top security official and seven other people - an attack that threatens to bring Syria's civil war to Lebanon.

The Lebanese cabinet was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Saturday as the country's opposition called for Prime Minister Najib Mikati to resign.

The state-run National News Agency said security commanders would attend the meeting to discuss how to keep the peace.

The government declared a national day of mourning for the victims of Friday's blast, who included Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan, head of the intelligence division of Lebanon's domestic security forces.

Dozens were wounded in the attack in Beirut's mainly Christian Achrafieh neighbourhood.

Many observers said the attack appeared to have links to the Syrian civil war, which has been raging for 19 months.

Al-Hassan, 47, headed an investigation over the summer that led to the arrest of former information minister Michel Samaha, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most loyal allies in Lebanon.

Samaha, who is in custody, is accused of plotting a campaign of bombings and assassinations to spread sectarian violence in Lebanon at Syria's behest. Also indicted in the August sweep was Syrian Brigadier General Ali Mamlouk, one of al-Assad's most senior aides.

Lebanon's fractious politics are closely entwined with Syria's.

The countries share a web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries, often causing events on one side of the border to echo on the other. Lebanon's opposition is an anti-Syrian bloc, while the prime minister and most of the government are pro-Syrian.

The civil war in Syria has laid bare Lebanon's sectarian tensions as well.

Many of Lebanon's Sunnis have backed Syria's mainly Sunni rebels, while Shi'ites have tended to back al-Assad.

Al-Hassan was a Sunni whose stances were widely seen to oppose Syria and the country's most powerful ally in Lebanon, the Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah.

On Friday, protesters in mostly Sunni areas closed roads with burning tyres and rocks in Beirut, the southern city of Sidon, the northern city of Tripoli and several towns in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The highway linking central Beirut with the city's international airport was closed, as well as the highway that links the capital with Syria, officials said.

Rafik Khoury, editor of the independent Al-Anwar daily, said the assassination was an attempt to draw Lebanon into the conflict in Syria, which has been the most serious threat to the al-Assad family's 40-year dynasty.

"The side that carried out the assassination knows the reactions and dangerous repercussions and is betting that it will happen. Strife is wanted in Lebanon," Khoury wrote.

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