Car Bomb Kills 45 in Lebanon; 6-Day Toll 138

A car-bomb explosion killed at least 45 people Tuesday in the northern city of Tripoli minutes after many of the victims were drawn to the scene of a minor blast.

It was the fifth car bombing in six days and brings the death toll in such attacks to at least 138.

The bombings have been accompanied by escalating shelling in Beirut and its environs, and artillery battles Tuesday between Muslim and Christian forces resulted in 40 deaths. Official Beirut radio said about 10,000 shells were fired in a 24-hour period.

“It’s the game of death in its ugliest form,” Education and Labor Minister Salim Hoss said of the car bombings. “We are like cards that are being burned, (but) even the players . . . are prisoners in this hellish game.”

War of Car Bombs

The attacks have been dubbed by a Muslim radio station as the “war of the car bombs.”

Some sources said the car bomb in Tripoli exploded amid crowds that gathered after a man threw a stick of dynamite from another car only minutes earlier. Other sources said the car contained two timed explosive charges, a small one that drew the crowds and a larger one that devastated the area minutes later.

“When the first explosion went off, about 200 people rushed to look. Then the car bomb exploded and everything came down,” a rescue worker said.

Security sources said the car, loaded with an estimated 440 pounds of explosives, also wounded about 100. The explosion devastated a four-story building housing a police station, badly damaged two nearby apartment buildings and ignited a huge fire.

An anonymous caller who claimed to speak on behalf of the Revolutionary Christians of the Cedars, a hitherto unknown group, telephoned a Western news agency in Beirut to say it planted the bomb.

The caller, speaking in French, declared, “We want to assure the whole world that no Muslim fundamentalists will continue to live on Lebanese soil.”

The car was parked near the homes of the local chief of the Sunni Muslim fundamentalist Jundullah (Soldiers of God) militia, Sheik Kanaan Naji, and his aide, Sheik Abdel Karim Badawi. Naji was hurt but was released after treatment at a hospital. There was no word on whether Badawi was hurt.

Four-Hour Lull

Security sources in Beirut said that in addition to the 40 dead, about 140 were wounded in the artillery duels, which raged through the night and well into Tuesday and resumed Tuesday night after a four-hour lull.

“It was the worst night and day of shelling in 10 years,” said Jacques Karam, 38, a Christian doctor in Beirut. “I spent 10 hours in the shelter. Even during the (1982) Israeli invasion it was not as bad as this.”

“Nearly every building was hit,” another resident, Adel Jaafar, said, pointing to gaping holes in walls and rubble-strewn streets lined with smashed cars and tree branches.

Shells fell near the West Beirut home of Shia Muslim leader Nabih Berri in what residents said was the heaviest bombardment in the Barbour district in years. Berri’s house escaped with broken windows, but heavy artillery shells dug craters up to 18 inches deep in nearby streets, demolished an elementary school and left power and telephone wires dangling.

Airport Hit

Beirut’s airport, boycotted by U.S. airlines, was hit by 40 shells and rockets. Several hit the terminal building but no casualties were reported. Two aircraft were reported slightly damaged.

The airport in Muslim-controlled southern Beirut continued to operate. Passengers nervously boarded Lebanese airliners, just about the only aircraft using the frequently-shelled airport, as artillery boomed in the hills overlooking the runways.

The artillery duels appeared to have been sparked by a recent series of car bombings that began in East Beirut last Wednesday.

Two car-bomb blasts killed 28 people in Muslim West Beirut on Monday, apparent reprisals for two such attacks in Christian East Beirut areas last week.

Security sources said unidentified planes on Tuesday attacked gun positions near Tarshish, on Syrian-controlled slopes of the central Lebanese mountain range, but police in the nearby mountain town of Dhour Shweir later denied the report.

Education and Labor Minister Hoss left abruptly for Damascus on Tuesday at the urgent request of Syrian leaders, government sources said.

President Amin Gemayel and Premier Rashid Karami both said Monday that the car bombers were trying to foil Syrian efforts to reconcile Christian and Muslim factions and restore peace after a decade of civil war.

Karami accused Israel of responsibility “because it is the principal beneficiary from every breach in our national unity.”