This time disaster struck in daylight, in central Beirut, writes Lucy Fielder from Lebanon Whoever planted the car bomb which killed Walid Eido, a Beirut MP for Al-Saad Hariri's Future Movement, and his son Khaled, made little effort to spare the lives of bystanders. A further eight people were killed, including two footballers training in the Nijmeh grounds in Beirut's seaside Manara district. The motionless big wheel of Beirut's Luna Park funfair, an ice-cream parlour and an amusement arcade, looked garish and incongruous against the bombed-out wreck of a shop by the side-road to the beach, where Eido's car was blown up. "It's a shock this happened here," said Nasir Mona, a chef at the restaurant near where the bombing took place, as he swept up broken glass from the windows. "This is part of a plot to paralyse the country's economy and tourism." Tension was already soaring in Lebanon as the Lebanese army continued to battle Sunni militant group Fatah Al-Islam in the northern Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp. During the month of Lebanon's worst internal fighting since the civil war, a string of late- night explosions have struck in and around the capital. Adding to widespread fears of a "hot summer" of civil unrest, an angry mob shouted sectarian slogans at the Sunni parliamentarian's funeral. "The blood of the Sunnis is boiling", they roared, as they chanted for Iraq's Saddam Hussein, a symbol of the Sunni strongman since his execution in December. They accused Hizbullah Secretary- General Hassan Nasrallah of being a "terrorist" because of his Shia party's alliance with Syria, which government loyalists blamed for the MP's death and the killing of six other anti-Syrian figures since 2005. "They're killing us one by one, every day we have to pay with our blood," Beirut student Elissar Badawi said outside the mosque where prayers were held, in south- central Qasqas. Eido was killed three days after a UN Security Council resolution setting up an international tribunal into Rafik Al-Hariri's 2005 assassination came into force, leading his son Saad to accuse Syria of taking revenge. Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces' Christian party, accused Syria of killing Eido in order to reduce the number of parliamentary majority MPs, following the assassination last November of Christian, 14 March MP Pierre Gemayel. Hariri's bloc now has 68 seats out of a parliament that originally had 128 members. The government announced by-elections to fill the two seats on 5 August, but President Emile Lahoud said he would not sign the decree because he and the opposition led by Hizbullah and Christian leader Michel Aoun view the government as illegitimate. Six of their allies withdrew from cabinet in November in a dispute over the international tribunal. "The decree which is to be signed by the government is constitutional, and if President Lahoud does not sign it, then the latter's behaviour will be considered unconstitutional," Geagea told reporters. Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement warned that the by-elections must be approved through ordinary legal channels and called for a national unity government, which has been a long-standing opposition demand, to be formed first. But he has also said his party would prepare for the by-elections. Cabinet also asked the international investigation into Rafik Al-Hariri's assassination to add Eido's death to its caseload. Eido's Beirut seat is expected to stay in the hands of the Future Party, but Gemayel's seat in the Metn mountain region north of Beirut may be hotly contested. Eido's killing ended a slight ripple of optimism in Lebanon's murky political waters. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa landed in Beirut this week to try to usher Lebanon's bitterly divided leaders towards the dialogue table, but the local media was sceptical that he would serve up any new suggestions or that this attempt would be more successful than his last, earlier this year. "I think this approach of trying to mediate by persuasion without insisting doesn't have much backbone, and at the moment relying on the common sense of the Lebanese is a bit optimistic, if not to say wishful thinking," said Sami Baroudi, political science professor at the Lebanese American University. A French initiative, whereby all the leaders were to meet in France to try to overcome differences, appeared to be "in limbo", he said. "What's been attempted is less than what is necessary," he said, as he advocated a return to classic "sticks and carrots" diplomacy rather than back-room talks. "I personally think priority should have been given to forming a national unity government rather than the by-elections," Baroudi added. "These elections are going to exacerbate existing differences rather than bring the Lebanese together." As their leaders gear up for another battle, many Lebanese feel fear and powerlessness. Beirut emptied this week, its streets, cafés and shops eerily quiet. "There is this feeling among ordinary people, that they're moving towards the abyss and that it's not for them to reverse the slide," said Baroudi. "Their leaders are saying 'doom is coming, but blame it on the other side, not on us'."
