Lebanon Evacuation

BEIRUT-An anti-Syrian lawmaker was killed in a car bombing in a Christian suburb of Beirut on Wednesday, shaking Lebanon just a week ahead of a crucial election in the divided country.

The killing of Antoine Ghanem was the latest in a string of attacks in recent years against prominent critics of Lebanon's neighbor and former power broker Syria.

"He has died," Joseph Abu Khalil, a senior official from Ghanem's Phalange Party, told Agence France-Presse.

The attack occurred in the Sin el-Fil neighborhood in the eastern surburbs of the Lebanese capital and television footage showed several burnt-out and twisted cars, black smoke from cars still ablaze, facades of buildings wrecked, shattered glass, and bodies on the streets.

"The blast was caused by a car bomb that claimed numerous victims," said another police official who did not want to be named.

Lebanese television said at least four people had been killed and a number injured but there has been no official confirmation of the death toll.

The explosion took place a week before parliament is due to meet on September 25 to elect a new head of state to replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud amid a near-complete political deadlock in Lebanon.

The blast apparently took place near the residence of former president Amin Gemayel, whose son, industry minister Pierre Gemayel, was gunned down on November 21, 2006.

Antoine Ghanem is a member of Gemayel's Phalange Party, a partner in the ruling anti-Syrian majority.

In June, another MP Walid Eido was murdered in a Beirut bomb attack that also killed nine people, the latest in a string of assassinations and attempts to kill anti-Syrian politicians and other prominent figures in Lebanon.

The country has been on edge since the February 2005 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, which was widely blamed on neighboring Syria and forced it to end three decades of military domination.

In February, on the eve of the second anniversary of Hariri's assassination, three people were killed in the bombing of two buses in a Christian village in the mountains outside Beirut.