BEIRUT (AFP) — Three people were killed on Tuesday by a bomb that targeted a US embassy car in the Lebanese capital, the latest in a string of attacks in the troubled country.
The bombing on a seafront road on the northern edge of Beirut came amid a deep political crisis in Lebanon and coincided with a Middle East tour by US President George W. Bush, who was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
It also comes amid heightened fears about security in light of an attack last week against UN forces in southern Lebanon and a threat against the army by an Al-Qaeda-linked group.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed outrage at what she called a terrorist attack.
Speaking in Riyadh, where she is accompanying Bush, she said Washington would not be deterred by "intimidation" in its efforts to help democratic forces in Lebanon "resist foreign interference in their affairs."
A senior Lebanese security official said the "bomb was detonated as the US car was driving by along with another vehicle carrying civilians between the Dawra and Qarantina areas.
"It was a 15 kilogramme (33 pound) bomb that we believe was placed in a car parked on the side of the road," the official told AFP, adding that it was detonated by remote control.
Three people -- a Syrian on a motorbike and two other civilians in a passing car -- were killed and 26 wounded, he said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said "we have people on-scene right now who are going through and continuing to do the investigation, collect information, collect evidence.
"So we don't yet have a full picture of exactly what happened, who is responsible, who is exactly being targeted.
Asked if rumors were true that the embassy car had been part of a convoy involving the ambassador, he declined to "talk about any facts that may get to operational security aspects of how we do business in Beirut."
In the wake of the attack, the US embassy said it had cancelled a farewell reception for Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman.
Lebanese Youth Minister Ahmad Fatfat said the car had just dropped several US diplomats at Beirut airport and was apparently heading back to the embassy.
McCormack said a private US citizen was slightly hurt and was being treated in hospital. The Lebanese official said he was a minister at an evangelical church near the site of the blast.
The Lebanese driver of the car was also slightly hurt, while his only passenger, a non-American Foreign Service employee, emerged unscathed.
Tuesday's attack was widely seen as a bid to derail Arab League efforts to bring an end to a festering crisis between the Western-backed government and Syrian-backed opposition over electing a new president.
Parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri said it was a "criminal act ... aimed at preventing the Lebanese from turning a new page".
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the Shiite opposition party "condemns any such attack on Lebanese territory, regardless of who is targeted."
Amal, the party headed by opposition leader and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, said "the attack was aimed at torpedoeing Arab League efforts to resolve the presidential crisis."
Arab League chief Amr Mussa is due in Lebanon on Wednesday in a new bid to try to resolve the deadlock ahead of a planned new vote in parliament on January 21 to choose a successor to president Emile Lahoud, whose term ended in November.
Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the best answer to such "terrorist" attacks, which "aim to destabilise the country's security and stability," would be to "adopt the Arab League plan."
That initiative is based on a three-point plan that calls for the election of army chief General Michel Sleiman as president, the formation of a national unity government in which no one party has veto power and the adoption of a new electoral law.
Although the ruling coalition has given the plan its full backing, Hezbollah is insisting the opposition be granted a third of the seats in a new government so as to have a veto over key decisions.
Lebanon has been rocked by a string of bombings, most of which have targeted prominent anti-Syrian politicians, the most high-profile being the February 2005 assassination of former billionaire premier Rafiq Hariri.
It was not known if the next week's vote -- the 13th attempt to elect a president -- would still take place.
In the last attack in Lebanon, General Francois El Hajj was killed in a car bombing along with three other people on December 12. He had been tipped to replace Sleiman as army head.
US diplomatic and military missions in Lebanon were attacked on a number of occasions during the 1975-1990 civil war, when Islamic fundamentalists also kidnapped several US hostages.
The US embassy was hit several times during the war. In the deadliest anti-American attack, 242 service personnel were killed in a suicide truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983.
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