Lebanon’s President Slain : Motorcade Bomb Kills 23 Others

President Rene Mouawad was killed today when a bomb exploded on a street in Muslim West Beirut as his motorcade passed by. He had been president only 17 days.

A police spokesman said Mouawad died instantly in the blast, which came minutes after the president held a reception marking Lebanon’s Independence Day. Police said it took more than an hour to identify the president’s body among the mangled corpses.

At least 23 other people were reported killed, including 10 of Mouawad’s bodyguards.

Col. Mohammed Khashab, a police bomb squad official, said the 550-pound bomb was hidden in a small shop and detonated by remote control.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The bomb went off at 1:45 p.m. on Bustros Boulevard in the Sanayeh district. It was so powerful it hurled the president’s bulletproof Mercedes limousine several yards off the street.

Mouawad, 64, a Maronite Catholic, had long advocated Christian-Muslim reconciliation in his country. He was elected Nov. 5 at a special Parliament session as part of an Arab League-sponsored peace plan aimed at ending Lebanon’s 14-year-old civil war.

He was sworn in the same day, despite strong objections by the Christian leader, Gen. Michel Aoun, who opposed the plan. The parliamentary session was moved to Syrian-controlled north Lebanon after Aoun threatened to shell it.

Mouawad’s top aides, Prime Minister-designate Salim Hoss, a Sunni Muslim, and Parliament Speaker Hussein Husseini, a Shiite Muslim, also were in the 10-car convoy, in the vehicle behind the president’s. Police said they were not hurt.

“It is a national disaster,” Hoss said in a radio address to the nation 2 1/2 hours after the explosion. “President Rene Mouawad was assassinated by the hand of treason,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion.

President Bush denounced the assassination as “disgraceful, terroristic,” and pledged continued U.S. assistance for efforts to end Lebanon’s civil war. “It is a disgraceful performance and is condemned by the United States of America,” Bush said.

A statement from Hoss’ office said Hoss and Husseini had convened in “crisis talks” to prepare for a quick Parliament session to elect a successor to Mouawad.

The statement stressed that the leaders were trying to avoid a political vacuum that would undermine the peace plan, which was approved last month.

Aoun objected to the plan because it did not include a timetable for the withdrawal of the 40,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon. He denounced Mouawad as a Syrian puppet.

The Syrians were deployed in Lebanon in 1976 under a peacekeeping mandate to quell civil war. Aoun said they abrogated the mandate by siding with the Muslims in the civil war, and he has vowed to drive them out.

On Sept. 14, 1982, President-elect Bashir Gemayel, a Maronite, was assassinated.

His brother, Amin Gemayel, became president and served until his term ran out in September, 1988. From that time until Mouawad’s election, Lebanon had been without a president because Parliament was unable to agree on one.