Car Bombs and Coffins

I was getting treatment for a back injury on Wednesday when the explosion occurred, causing me to jump up from prone position on an examination table to look out the bay window of my physical therapist's office. Sure enough a pillar of black smoke rose from the densely populated foothills of northern Beirut. Car bomb.

My physical therapist is a whole lot better connected than I am, so I stayed in his office while he worked the phones, calling the bodyguards of his political clients, all of whom were unscathed. But he scooped the local media and soon discovered the real target of the attack: Antoine Ghanem, a Christian member of parliament in the American-supported government coalition.

This was yet another in a string of chillingly professional hits on Lebanon's anti-Syrian politicians and activists. As many as 38 MPs from the ruling majority have been hiding out abroad under the protection of allied governments -- France, Egypt, Italy, UAE, Britain -- but have been trickling back into the country ahead the country's presidential election season, which begins on Tuesday with a scheduled vote in parliament. Ghanem had retuned from Abu Dhabi just two days before. Four other people died in the attack. Now most government MP's have moved into a special wing of Beirut's fanciest hotel, which has been fortified with airport-style security measures.

One interpretation of these assassinations is that Syria is playing a deadly numbers game against the Lebanese government, picking off their parliamentary majority one murder at a time. But cynics note (and there is no shortage of cynics in the Middle East) that there are plenty of other possible suspects. The Israelis might be trying to foment conflict between the Lebanese government and the Hizballah-led opposition, the better to isolate Hizballah, Israel's deadly foe. Or one of Lebanon's Christian political parties might be doing some internal housekeeping, rubbing out rivals or sacrificing the occasional martyr in order to motivate the base. These are of course conspiracy theories, but this campaign of assassinations is nothing if not a conspiracy. Or multiple conspiracies. No one really knows.

But that hasn't stopped the Lebanese government coalition, the United States, and the UN Security Council from almost instantly blaming Syria. "They are trying to plant fear in the hearts of Lebanese, prevent the rebuilding of Lebanon, and prevent the election of a president," said MP Namat Allah Abi Nasser at today's funeral for Ghanem. "If this happens it will be the end of Lebanon, which is what the Syrians are looking for." One top member of the government even called the attack a response to the Israeli air raid on Syria earlier this month, as if the Syrians released a press statement.

Foreign ambassadors were out in force at the funeral despite a free-floating feeling of panic, one reason perhaps why the event was modestly attended compared to other recent funerals and rallies. The fact that US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman -- who rarely appears in public -- made the trip all the way down from the isolated embassy compound in the hills outside Beirut wasn't enough one young woman following alongside the coffin of a bodyguard slain in Wednesday's attack. "Where is George Bush?" she yelled. "We need his help!" This corner of Beirut may be one of the last places in the Middle East where one can hear that on the street.

Girls mourning the death of a young bodyguard slain alongside Lebanese MP Antione Ghanem on Wednesday

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut