NewsLab

AFP Picture

By Jamal Saidi

BEIRUT, Jan 25 (Reuters) - A bomb exploded near an overpass in mainly Christian east Beirut on Friday, killing a senior police officer and at least five other people, security sources said.

Police identifed the officer as Wisam Eid, a captain in a Lebanese police intelligence unit which is widely viewed as close to anti-Syrian ruling coalition leader Saad al-Hariri.

Firemen sprayed water over blazing cars and debris scattered over a road in the suburb of Hazmiyeh. A charred corpse was visible in one car. Body parts were strewn on the road.

The explosion occurred 10 days after a car bomb damaged a U.S. diplomatic car in the Lebanese capital, killing three people and wounding 16. No Americans were among the dead.

Last month a car bomb killed the army’s chief of operations, Brigadier-General Francois Haj, in east Beirut.

Eid took up his post after his predecessor Samir Shehadeh was wounded in a roadside bomb south of Beirut in 2006.

The police intelligence unit has been closely involved in the U.N.-led investigation into the 2005 assassination of Hariri’s father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.