Lebanon president to skip Arab summit after bomb blast

Lebanese army explosive experts investigate the site where a car bomb exploded, wounding eight people and destroying the first floor of a residential block in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut early yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

With political tension mounting, 11 people were wounded shortly after midnight when the bomb exploded beneath a car in the Christian residential neighbourhood of Jdeide, causing extensive damage, police said.

Citing "exceptional circumstances," Lahoud called for dialogue between the country's anti-Syrian opposition and parties sympathetic to Damascus, an encounter he said was critical in order to "protect Lebanon."

Lahoud's office later announced that the president would not attend a two-day Arab summit starting Tuesday in Algeria "because of the situation" in Lebanon.

Saturday's blast was the first serious incident since popular former premier Rafiq Hariri and 18 other people were killed in a huge bombing in Beirut February 28, an attack that ignited public fury and stepped up calls for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.