January 15, 2008
Beirut Bomb Targets US Embassy Vehicle
A vehicle belonging to the US Embassy in Beirut was destroyed by an explosion originally thought to be a car bomb, but now believed to be a remotely detonated roadside device. Conflicting reports say that either 3 or 4 Lebanese residents of the Christian Dora-Karantina neighborhood were killed. The driver of the Embassy vehicle was wounded, although the passengers appear to be OK. Via Fox News:
BEIRUT, Lebanon — An explosion targeted a U.S. Embassy vehicle Tuesday in northern Beirut, killing at least three Lebanese and injuring an American bystander and a local embassy employee, U.S. and Lebanese officials said.The blast, which damaged the armored SUV and several other vehicles, took place just ahead of a farewell reception for the American ambassador at a hotel in central Beirut.
No Americans were in the car, which was carrying two Lebanese employees of the embassy, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.
There were conflicting accounts of the death toll, with the State Department, from information provided by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, saying four people had been killed and Lebanese authorities saying that only three had died.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the bombing a "terrorist attack."
"The United States will, of course, not be deterred in its efforts to help the Lebanese people, to help the democratic forces in Lebanon, to help Lebanon resist force and interference in their affairs," she told reporters in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
The bombing — which came as U.S. President George W. Bush and Rice toured the Mideast — was the first attack on U.S. diplomatic interests in Lebanon since the 1980s, when the country saw some of the deadliest terror attacks against Americans in U.S. history.
The banquet for Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman has been cancelled. Please pray for the safety of our diplomats and Embassy staff in Beirut and other troubled parts of the world. As we saw with the murder of John Granville in Sudan on New Year's Day, the civilian side of the War on Terror can be deadly as well.
