Two people were killed and eight injured late yesterday in a car bomb explosion in a Christian suburb east of Beirut, the fourth such incident this month since Rafik Hariri was killed in a blast, Lebanese security officials said.

The explosion, which left a number of buildings burning and destroyed shops, occurred in the industrial area of Sad al- Bushrieh, Lebanon's state-run national news agency said on its Web site. The two dead were Indian workers, the agency said. This is the third explosion in ten days that targets a Christian area in Beirut, which is still reeling from the Feb. 14 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese opposition leader, has blamed Syrian and Lebanese intelligence for Hariri's murder and the other car bomb attacks. Antoine Gebara, mayor of the northeastern Beirut area Bouchrieh, said the explosion was caused by a bomb placed near the buildings in an industrial area. "It appears it is an explosive charge that was placed there," Gebara told Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. "They must love us - we got it twice in a week," he said referring to an explosion in the nearby predominantly Christian neighborhood Jdeideh last Saturday that injured nine people. A bomb Wednesday killed three people in a Christian commercial centre. Witnesses said the blast on the eve of the Easter holiday occurred three hours before Catholics were to head to a midnight mass.

The unasked question in many worried minds is that will Lebanon slide towards Muslim-Christian unrest once again. The Hezbollah is the armed wing of the Shias, while the Phalangists (Falangists) are the armed wing of the Maronite Christians, the Sunnis also form a significant minority and have their own armed militias. All these could be going for each other in an effort to protect their respective communities, in a civil war scenario.

The country has emerged through a bloodied civil war between the two communities in the 1970s and 1980s, a period which saw Syrian and Israeli armies move into Lebanon. With the civil war scenario again appearing to become real once again, so also is the prospect of the Syrians refusing to leave and the Israelis coming back in once again. The multi-ethnic character of Lebanon is a gift of its turbulent history.

The UN requirement of an independent inquiry into Rafik Hariri’s murder

With a Syria supporter Omar Karami in the Prime Minister’s seat in Lebanon, there is no hope that the Lebanese Government would ever bring out the truth behind Rafik Hariri’s murder. Omar Karami cannot point a finger at his benefactors – the Syrians as being the murderers. He owes his position to them, if he does that not only will that be ingratitude in Syrian eyes, but would also make him too a target of an assassination. This is the rational behind the UN demand for an impartial and independent inquiry into the murder of Rafik Hariri.

Syrian-Al Qaeda nexus and Bin Laden’s Message on Socialists and Jihadis

It seems that the Al Qaeda has teamed up with the Syrian Batthists to destabilize Lebanon. Al Qaeda’s fingerprints are to be seen in the bomb blast that killed Hariri. Syria is playing along with Al Qaeda, since it wanted Hariri out of the way. Bashar Assad had threatened Hariri with physical harm, f he insisted upon a Syrian withdrawal. Now after Hariri has been put out of the way, Syria would continue to play ball with Al Qaeda since a destabilized Lebanon is a good excuse for it to delay its withdrawal if not to stay put there. To understand the Baathist-A;Qaeda nexus, we need to recall Bin Laden’s message on the eve of the Iraq war that the interests of the Socialists (read Baathists) and of the Jihadis co-incide when fighting the common enemy – the Crusaders and Jews. Here the Lebanese Government is an enemy by its virtue of not that is not being hostile to the USA and Israel