Bomb Kills Premier of Lebanon : 4 Injured Aboard Karami’s Copter En Route to Beirut

Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami was assassinated Monday by a bomb planted aboard an army helicopter ferrying government officials from the northern city of Tripoli to West Beirut.

Four other people, including Interior Minister Abdullah Rassi and the pilot, were seriously injured by the blast. But the helicopter, which was carrying 14 people, landed safely at a military airstrip near Jubayl, about 30 miles north of Beirut.

Karami was returning from a visit to his summer home in Bqaa Safrine, near Tripoli. The helicopter was reportedly about midway between Tripoli and Beirut when the explosion occurred.

Week of Mourning

The death of the 65-year-old premier was announced to the nation in a brief statement from President Amin Gemayel, who declared a week of official mourning for his longtime political adversary.

Later Monday, Gemayel announced that Education Minister Salim Hoss, who was premier from 1976 to 1980, has been been appointed as acting premier until a new Cabinet is formed. Like Karami, Hoss, 57, is a Sunni Muslim.

Radio stations of all political shades suspended their bickering to play classical music in memory of Karami. It was a show of unity so rare in this war-torn nation that it last occurred in 1982, when the fiery Christian militia leader Bashir Gemayel was killed shortly after being elected president.

Shops closed and students demonstrated in Tripoli, the city 50 miles north of Beirut that Karami represented since he first entered politics in 1951.

Syria May Suffer

From the perspective of regional politics, the nation most likely to suffer from Karami’s death is Syria. Karami was an ardent supporter of Syria’s intervention in Lebanese politics, most recently the decision by Damascus to send more than 7,000 troops to West Beirut in February to quell fighting among Muslim militias.

Syria condemned the Karami killing as a “major tragedy and an odious crime” and said “Israel and its agents in Lebanon” were responsible for the attack.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called Karami’s killing a “tragic development,” while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said he doubts that the assassination will have an impact on Israel’s relations with Lebanon.

In Washington, the State Department also condemned the killing, calling it a “dark moment in Lebanon’s tragedy.”

A 10-time premier, Karami was chosen for his latest term in the spring of 1984 to head a government of “national reconciliation.” The task soon proved beyond even his formidable gift for political compromise. In frustration, Karami offered his resignation on May 4, but President Amin Gemayel had not yet acted upon it.

Although considered the most serious political killing in Lebanon in recent years, Karami’s appeared to have fewer political repercussions than the earlier ones, including the murders of Bashir Gemayel and Kamal Jumblatt, head of the Druze community, in 1977.

As the titular head of Lebanon’s Sunni community, Karami was notable for being the only one of Lebanon’s political leaders who did not head a militia group. The remnants of the only national Sunni militia, the Murabitoun, were liquidated last year, and the Sunni militia in Sidon is a local force.

Cabinet Rarely Met

Also limiting Karami’s influence was the fact that his 10-man Cabinet rarely met, leaving the government largely paralyzed by inaction.

Karami and other Sunni leaders such as Hoss, the acting premier, were reduced in recent months to expressing their moral outrage at the deteriorating situation in Lebanon after 11 years of factional fighting.

Since last year, Karami led a Muslim boycott of the government to protest President Gemayel’s veto of a Syrian-sponsored peace plan for the country.

An anonymous caller told a Beirut radio station that a cabal of army officers carried out the killing. Most Beirut analysts saw the killing as a blow directed at Syria’s intervention in Lebanon, which began in 1976 at the close of the 1975-76 civil war and shortly after Karami was sworn in as premier for his ninth term.

Criticized by Christians

The most outspoken criticism of Karami and his support for Syria has come in recent months from Christian leaders, notably the leaders of the so-called Lebanese Forces militia. Christian leaders intensified the rhetorical campaign against Karami after his appeal to Syria to send troops to West Beirut this year.

Nonetheless, a statement from the Lebanese Forces on Monday condemned the killing in strong terms.

“Despite the differences of views we had with Karami,” the statement said, “we strongly condemn this act, which was also in contradiction with the concept of democracy on which Lebanon was built.”

Karami’s body was returned to Tripoli on Monday night in a 15-car motorcade in which his two brothers rode.

The presidential statement said he will be buried in a grave next to his father, Abdel-Hamid Karami, who in 1945 became one of Lebanon’s first premiers.

A lifelong bachelor, Karami was said by many Lebanese to have “married politics.” Although he was a distinctly secular leader, Karami took pride in his ability to speak at length in formal Koranic Arabic, a halting rhetorical style that became the butt of numerous political jokes.

Stubbornly Optimistic

With his mane of silver hair and tailored suit of diplomatic gray, Karami was regarded by most as a gracious leader who sounded stubbornly optimistic at times when most others had given up hope.

In 1951, three years after earning a law degree in Cairo, Karami entered politics as a member of Parliament and soon was chosen as justice minister.

He became premier for the first time in 1955, when he was selected by President Camille Chamoun, with whom Karami later had a major falling-out that led to the Lebanon’s first civil war, in 1958.

Karami served again in 1959 when he was chosen by compromise President Fuad Chebab, who was elected after a six-month intervention by U.S. Marines sent to quell the fighting.

Karami held the post of premier intermittently until 1976, by which time friction between Christians and Palestinians in the country had erupted into full-scale war.

Gemayel summoned him to the post again in 1984 in hopes of patching together a Cabinet of “national unity.”

Karami served as premier under a power-sharing formula that since 1946 has given the presidency to a Maronite Christian, the premiership to a Sunni Muslim and the post of Speaker of Parliament to a Shia Muslim.