Jordan Diplomat Assassinated in Beirut : Mideast: The killing is the first of a foreign envoy since Lebanon’s 15-year civil war ended.

A gunman shot and killed Jordan’s second-ranking diplomat in Beirut on Saturday, the first assassination of a foreign diplomat since Lebanon’s 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

Police said an assassin with an apparently unarmed accomplice killed Naeb Imran Maaytah as he was driving out of a parking lot near his house in the seaside Raouche district at 9:30 a.m.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination, and authorities would only speculate on the motive.

The attack marked a blow to efforts to clean up Lebanon’s image from the civil war years as a haven for assassins, kidnapers, bombers and hijackers. The government has intensified its campaign to lure foreigners back in the past year, claiming Beirut is safe again.

Prime Minister Rafik Hariri called the assassination of the Jordanian Embassy’s first secretary an “ugly crime.” Foreign Minister Faris Bouez and Interior Minister Bishara Merhej contacted Amman separately to promise swift action to arrest the culprit, according to radio stations in Beirut and Jordan.

Witnesses said the gunman, armed with a 9-millimeter pistol and dressed in a gray sweater, approached Maaytah’s dark gray Mercedes-Benz 500 and pumped at least seven bullets through the driver’s window.

Most of the bullets pierced Maaytah’s head and neck, and he died instantly, police said. The assassin and his accomplice fled.

It was unknown whether Maaytah’s murder was linked to the Arab-Israeli peace talks under way in Washington. Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization have been negotiating with Israel for the past two years, much to the dissatisfaction of extremists and Muslim fundamentalists.

In Amman, Western diplomats saw a possible link between the assassination and Jordan’s recent request that Iran reduce its diplomatic presence in Amman. Iran, which has a strong following among Muslim fundamentalists in Lebanon, and Jordan have had strained relations since 1990, when diplomatic ties resumed after a 10-year break.

Maaytah was on his way to the embassy at Sakiet Janzeer, a few minutes’ drive away, when he was killed.

Maaytah had been serving in Lebanon for about a year while his wife and three children remained in Jordan.

In Amman, acting Prime Minister Man abu Nuwar denounced the killing, which he blamed on “treacherous hands.”

The last assassination of a foreigner attached to a diplomatic mission in Beirut was in 1989, when a Saudi was killed in Muslim West Beirut.

Almost the entire diplomatic corps fled the Lebanese capital during the 1975-90 civil war, when assassinations, hostage-taking and suicide bombing attacks became rampant.