Explosion Outside Beirut Kills 2

Two people were killed and five wounded early today when a bomb blast tore through a shopping center in a Christian town 12 miles north of the Lebanese capital, police sources said.

The roof of the center in the coastal town of Kaslik collapsed and emergency services workers searched through the rubble for survivors.

Windows of buildings nearby were shattered and glass littered the streets.

Police said the multistory shopping center was closed at the time of the explosion. The toll would have been much higher if the blast had occurred in the daytime on the usually crowded street.

The two people killed were Asian workers at the building, police said.

“It is clear that those who carried out this attack are targeting the security and stability of the country,” opposition parliament member Faris Bouez told reporters at the scene.

“It is a political message to the [anti-Syria] independence uprising,” Bouez said.

The explosion was the second in a commercial Christian area in five days. Early Saturday, a car bomb wounded 11 people in a suburb of northern Beirut.

Political tension has taken hold in Beirut since the Feb. 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The assassination triggered a wave of anti-Syria demonstrations.

International pressure after Hariri’s death forced Syria to announce a withdrawal of troops from Lebanon.

On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in Algiers that Syrian President Bashar Assad had agreed to present a timetable by early April for a full withdrawal of his country’s troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon.

Annan announced the commitment after talking with the Syrian leader on the sidelines of an Arab League summit.

Syria had suggested earlier that the date for a full withdrawal would be set at an April 7 meeting between Syrian and Lebanese military officers.

Lebanese government officials have said that 4,000 of the approximately 14,000 soldiers Syria had in Lebanon already have left the country and that the rest are now concentrated in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.