BEIRUT, 3 August 2003 — A car bomb yesterday morning exploded in Beirut’s Shiite southern suburbs, an area dominated by the Hezbollah resistance group, killing a member of the group who worked as a driver for the Iranian Embassy.
The driver, Ali Saleh, 42, from Brital in the Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, was cut in two by the bomb which detonated just seconds after he switched on the engine, a few blocks from his house, police said.
Two passersby were also wounded in the blast, which could be heard kilometers away across the city, police said. Police said the explosives had been hidden in the black BMW’s differential.
The 8:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) blast hit Hadi Nasrallah Street, a busy main road into the capital which bears the name of the late son of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, killed while attacking Israeli forces in south Lebanon before their May 2000 pullout.
Saleh had been a member of Hezbollah’s armed wing since 1982, when the group was founded, and had “taken part in many training sessions and participated in many (anti-Israeli) attacks”, a Hezbollah statement said.
Hezbollah placed “the entire responsibility on Israel in this crime, which we consider flagrant aggression against our people and country”, and added: “this crime will not go unpunished.” Saleh will be buried in his hometown today, it said. Hezbollah led the resistance against Israel’s 22-year occupation of south Lebanon until it ended in May 2000 and it often blames Israel for such operations. The Iranian Embassy in Lebanon refused to comment on the incident when contacted by AFP.
