U.S. Ambassador’s Motorcade Comes Under Fire in Beirut

U.S. Ambassador John H. Kelly escaped unharmed on Thursday when his motorcade came under fire along a street jammed with midday traffic in Christian East Beirut.

One bullet hit the hood of the armored limousine carrying the 48-year-old Kelly, but no one in the ambassador’s three-car motorcade was hurt, according to police.

The State Department, however, ruled out the possibility that Kelly was ambushed as part of an assassination plot.

U.S. officials and Lebanese police agreed that the shooting resulted from a traffic altercation.

The shooting occurred around noon while Kelly, riding in a bulletproof vehicle that was accompanied by two escort cars, was en route from his residence in East Beirut to the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy building in Aukar.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley gave this account:

“Ambassador Kelly’s motorcade was involved in a shooting incident while en route from (his) residence to the embassy,” Oakley said. “According to initial embassy reports, the incident was sparked by a traffic altercation when two men in an automobile belonging to an East Beirut security firm attempted to force their way through the ambassador’s motorcade.

“Subsequently, associates of the two men in the car fired on the ambassador’s convoy. Our security personnel returned fire in response to this confrontation.”

The State Department’s preliminary conclusion, she said, is that “it was not a planned ambush or assassination attempt.”