Car Bomb Kills 17, Injures 84 in West Beirut

A car packed with explosives blew up on a crowded street in Muslim West Beirut today, killing 17 people and wounding 84 in the city’s fourth major bombing in two weeks, police sources said.

State-owned Beirut radio said the explosion occurred at 11:50 a.m. on Afif Tibbi Street near the Arab University, damaging buildings and cars in a 100-yard area and littering the streets with glass and rubble.

Today’s blast brought the death toll from the two weeks of bombings to 100.

The Fiat, crammed with explosives estimated to weigh 110 pounds, exploded as the street was teeming with pedestrians, shoppers and taxi drivers.

Family Burned in Car

“It is a massacre. I saw a family burning inside their car,” said Imad Nakin, 26. “All three children with their mother and father were burning inside. . . . It was too late to save them.”

“The bodies were charred and mutilated,” a rescue worker said. “We could only find pieces and remnants of bodies of people trapped under the rubble.”

Christian and Muslim leaders alike immediately condemned “such crimes, which only reap innocent people.”

Security sources said the explosive-laden car was parked near an office of the Syrian Baath Party and yards away from an office of the Muslim Shia Amal movement.

Dozens of gunmen took to the streets, sealing off roads and preventing people from leaving or entering the area.

“It is a state of panic,” a witness said. “The streets were teeming with people when the explosion rocked the area. All we saw is fire and smoke.”

Pro-Syrian Lebanese Muslim leaders have accused Israeli agents of being behind the recent explosions with the aim of marring the Syrian-arranged security plan for West Beirut.