March 14 blames Syria for Beirut car bombing

The opposition March 14 coalition accused Syria of an explosion Friday that killed at least three people and wounded scores more in the crowded residential neighborhood of Ashrafieh, Beirut. While confirming that no March 14 official was hurt in the afternoon rush-hour blast near Ashrafieh’s Sassine Square, March 14 coordinator Fares Soueid pointed a finger at Syrian President Bashar Assad. “Assad has repeatedly threatened to set fire to the region if the noose tightened on him,” Souaid told a local television station. Future Movement MP Nohad Mashnouq said the Ashrafieh explosion “is a message from the collapsing Syrian regime to terrorize Lebanese.” Wehbi Qatisha, the advisor to Lebanese Forces head Samir Geagea, said the blast aimed at undermining Lebanon’s stability. “Lebanon has been threatened by the Syrian regime for more than a year and a half,” Qatisha said. Kataeb party MP Nadim Gemayel also said Syria was behind the explosion. “The blast serves the political and security interest of the Syrian regime,” Gemayel said by telephone from Paris. Meanwhile, Pro-Syrian MP Speaker Nabih Berri’s parliamentary bloc described the explosion as a “terrorist attack.” “The blast is a terrorist act aimed at all the Lebanese and not the region in which it took place,” MP Yassin Jaber said. And the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party blamed Israel for the explosion. “The explosion bears the fingerprints of Israel,” the SSNP tweeted. A car bomb ripped through the packed Ashrafieh district in the Lebanese capital near the popular Sassine Square, killing at least three people and wounding 78. From DailyStar