Syrian government blamed for Beirut car bomb

A car bomb explosion in Beirut, Lebanon has left eight people dead, including the head of Lebanon’s internal intelligence, and dozens others wounded. Politicians in the small Middle Eastern country are accusing Damascus and the Assad regime of perpetrating the attack. A Syrian minister has condemned the attack, but Lebanon opposition party leader Saad Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt are both saying Syrian President Bashar Al Assad was behind the bombing. Hariri has long been a critic of the Syrian government. In 2005 he led an investigation into a bombing that killed his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which implicated Damascus. The car bomb was detonated on a busy street close to Hariri’s coalition’s headquarters. Hariri has openly accused Assad of the attack on Lebanese television and told the satellite channel Al Arabiya Assad has told them “even though he turned Syria into rubble, ‘I am ready to kill in any place.'”