Lebanon Living Carefully With Peril of Car Bombs

Newspaper photographer Ahmed Azakir recently parked his car in West Beirut so he could film a demonstration. When he returned, he found the window on the driver’s side smashed.

It didn’t take long for Azakir to figure out what had happened. Militiamen, fearful that the car had been rigged with a bomb and abandoned, broke in to check for explosives.

“I got very angry at them,” Azakir recalls. “It is not fair. I am not wealthy, and I had to pay to get a new window.”

Lebanon has seen so many car bombings in recent years that most drivers have learned that before leaving a parked car, they must alert nearby store owners or apartment managers that the vehicle is not booby-trapped.

Since the start of this year alone, there have been at least 17 major car or truck bomb explosions in Lebanon, killing more than 160 people and injuring at least 550.

Suicide Drivers

Several bombing attempts have failed. Others have caused damage but no injuries. A few, including the March 10 attack near the Israeli-Lebanese border that killed 12 Israeli soldiers and the March 9 bombing that killed 3, involved suicide drivers.

Police records indicate car bombs have been used for more than a decade in Lebanon.

Sometimes the motive has been political, such as the car bomb attacks on Druze institutions that began late last year, or the 1983 and 1984 truck bombings of U.S. installations.

Other times, the goal is economic, such as ridding a building of squatters so the owner can reclaim the property.

Lebanese have become increasingly fearful of car bombs because of the surprise element that goes with the devastation they cause.

“When we hear shelling, we take shelter,” said one Beirut woman, who spoke on condition that she not be identified. “But you can never know when a car might blow up.”

Some residents of West Beirut, where car bombings have occurred most often, avoid streets they fear could be prime targets--those with political offices, or with casinos or bars that have become targets for Muslim extremists.

Car bombs are a facet of violence some Lebanese say they have learned to live with after nearly 10 years of civil war.

A pharmacist who escaped injury on March 8 when a car bomb went off in the Shia Muslim neighborhood in Ghbaire said, “Car bombs, in my opinion, are no different from shells or explosions. Nothing will scare me.”

More than 75 people were killed and at least 265 wounded in the Ghbaire blast. Many were women and children.

Few perpetrators have been arrested.

Police sources, who insisted on anonymity before speaking, said most of the vehicles used in bombings are late-model cars that have been stolen and equipped with false license plates. Often the cars are repainted.

More Powerful Explosive

The sources said dynamite has been the usual explosive in Lebanon. A more powerful explosive, hexogen, has also been used, notably in the Oct. 23, 1983 truck bomb attack on U.S. Marine headquarters that killed 241 U.S. servicemen.

Lebanese have taken steps to protect themselves.

At first, people put large stones in front of their homes and businesses to discourage parking. Now they create permanent barriers with steel posts sunk into streets and often linked with heavy chains.

In the Hamra neighborhood, the main shopping district in West Beirut, barricades are numerous enough to make a severe parking shortage worse.

That may inconvenience customers. But Ahmed Haidar, manager of an optical shop, said the barriers “make me feel much better.”