So far this is the fourth bomb to strike within the last three weeks, just as Syria will finish pulling out its troops by next week.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A bomb damaged a shopping center in a Christian area northeast of Beirut Friday, the fourth attack against an anti-Syrian target in two weeks. The blast lightly injured seven people, one of them an American, police said.

The explosion in the resort town of Broummana, 10 miles northeast of the Lebanese capital, started a fire and shattered glass in several buildings, blew out store shutters and smashed several cars. Firefighters workers working in a steady downpour evacuated residents at the posh complex.

Broummana is lightly populated in winter but packed in the summer with Arab and other tourists. President Emile Lahoud’s hometown of Baabdat is only a few miles up the same mountain ridge.

Police said the bomb was placed in an underground parking lot at the center. Police estimated the explosive at 44 pounds.
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The explosion at the posh complex was the fourth since March 19, when a bomb ripped through the commercial and residential neighborhood of New Jdeideh.

Now, besides all of the attacks being in Christian neighborhoods, there is one big similarity between all of these attacks, including the Hariri assassination. The economy.

Syria has an estimated $1 billion stake to be lost with its removal from Lebanon. The first bomb that murdered Hariri was set off in downtown Beirut. Now many restaurants have had to slash prices just to seat a few tables. The first bombing was in a residential/commercial area, the third in an industrial complex, and the second and fourth in shopping malls. The recent explosions have also occured primarily at night, so that while not many people are injured, the bombs are big enough to scare the pants off people.

So what does this all mean? The malls that were targetted are prime destinations for foreigners and local alike to go shopping. Locals will be scared to go to places hit, and foreigners will be scared to go to the country at all. An article I found in the Daily Star has a lot of good to say about tourism growth in 2004, but it has heavily dropped since February.

BEIRUT: The number of tourists visiting Lebanon last month plunged 18.5 percent below last February’s level, signaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for the economy.

Newly released figures from the Tourism Ministry show only 49,796 tourists visited Lebanon last month, down from 61,113 in February 2004.

“If the situation was normal, our expectations would have been higher than they were in 2004,” Tourism Minister Wadih Khazen told The Daily Star. “We are trying our best to keep up with the tourist season for the coming summer and we are in close contact with tourist offices in other countries to attract people to Lebanon.”

The sharp drop in arrivals occurred after the explosion that ripped through Downtown Beirut on February 14, killing former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 17 others.

No figures are yet available for March, but the series of bomb attacks targeting Christian areas in Beirut’s eastern and northern suburbs have kept hotel occupancies low and foreign tourists wary about safety.

I guarantee the figures for March and then April will be lower. Everyone knows Lebanon will not break out into a civil war because they know the violence is being commited by a foreign power. But Syria is trying to make it as painful for them as possible, both their hearts and their pocketbooks.

One last thing to note is that Ya Libnan! is reporting that a bomb is suspected near Hariri’s residence and the police are investigating.

Hariri’s Security are scanning the Koreitem area (west Beirut), near assassinated PM Hariri’s residence using dogs and flashlights for a suspected bomb. Our corrospondent at the scene in Koreitem advised that more updates will follow as we get more details.