Non-fatal injuries 70 Total number of deaths 8 Attack types Car bomb, Assassination | Start date December 27, 2013 Location Beirut Central District | |
Location Beirut Central District, Beirut, Lebanon Similar 1985 Beirut car bombing, 2015 Beirut bombings, 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, Reyhanlı bombings | ||
Beirut car bomb eyewitness accounts of assassination of mohamad chatah
At approximately 9:40am on 27 December 2013, a car bomb struck the convoy of Mohamad Chatah, a former Lebanese minister of finance and ambassador to the United States, in the Central District of Beirut, Lebanon. The bombing killed a total of eight people, among them Chatah, and injured seventy others. The bomb "was estimated to weigh more than 50 kilograms and was placed inside a stolen Honda car." The attack has been described as a political assassination of Chatah.
Contents
- Beirut car bomb eyewitness accounts of assassination of mohamad chatah
- Domestic
- International
- References
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Immediately after the attack, accusations materialized about who is responsible: from Syria and Hezbollah allies on one side to Saudi Arabia and Salafists on other side, while some claimed other party did it to stoke sectarian tensions by making it appear like Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah retaliation for earlier attacks. Leading members of the March 14 Alliance to which Chatah belonged held Hezbollah responsible for the assassination. Former prime minister Saad al-Hariri said, "Those who assassinated Mohamad Chatah are the ones who assassinated Rafik Hariri." March 14 Alliance also blamed Syria, but Damascus has rejected such accusations. Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said, "These wrong and arbitrary accusations are made in a context of political hatred".
The attack initially killed six people, while two more subsequently succumbed to their wounds to bring the total death toll to eight.
Domestic
Former prime minister Saad al-Hariri accused Hezbollah of involvement in the killing of Chatah, saying it was "a new message of terrorism". "As far as we are concerned the suspects... are those who are fleeing international justice and refusing to represent themselves before the international tribunal," Hariri said, referring to the upcoming trial in The Hague of five Hezbollah members suspected of assassinating his father Rafik in 2005.