Car Bomb Blast During Beirut Rush Hour Kills 10, Wounds 51

BEIRUT — A car bomb exploded near a Syrian military base in Muslim West Beirut during morning rush hour Friday, killing 10 people, wounding 51 and destroying more than a dozen cars, police said.

An estimated 33 pounds of explosives concealed under the rear seat of a Mercedes-Benz went off at 10:40 a.m. in the working-class Cola neighborhood, they said.

The blast occurred between the Syrian military intelligence base and a Syrian checkpoint erected at the entrance, about 20 yards away, police said.

“We have not been informed of any Syrian casualties,” said a police officer on the scene.

Reporters counted 19 parked cars destroyed, six of them gutted to smoldering piles of metal. Glass shards littered the blood-stained main street as civil defense rescuers gathered up parts of human bodies torn apart by the explosion.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which appeared aimed at discrediting Syria’s law-enforcing mission in the Muslim sector of the Lebanese capital.

It was the 10th car-bombing in violence-ridden Lebanon this year, bringing the overall casualty toll in such attacks to 106 dead and 354 injured.

Most of the victims in Friday’s blast were Lebanese civilians from a service station and three adjacent high-rise apartment buildings that sustained severe damage, he said. The driver of the car was also killed.