Powerful explosion rocks Beirut shopping mall

alJazeera
Aug. 23, 2005

A powerful blast hit a shopping center in the Zalka neighborhood in north Beirut late Monday, causing extensive damage and wounding at least three people, Lebanese security and Red Cross sources said.

Security sources said that the small device was placed in the car park of the Promenade Hotel in the Zalka, a mixed residential and commercial area, Reuters news agency said.

Zalka residents said that clouds of black smoke were billowing into the sky near a hotel.

Ambulances and fire engines rushed to the bomb scene.

The target of the attack is unknown.

Monday blast is the latest in a series of bombings that killed and wounded several politicians and prominent figures in Lebanon since the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafiq Al Hariri last February.

The most recent attack took place on July 23, in a busy Christian neighborhood in Beirut; few hours after the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a brief visit to the country.

The blast wounded 12 people.

On July 12, a car bomb north of Zalka hit the motorcade of Lebanon's pro-Syrian defense minister, Elias Murr, wounding him and killing another man.