Another car bomb has gone off in Beirut, but this time with a twist. This politician, Elias Murr, is considered pro-Syria.

Lebanon’s caretaker Vice Premier and Defense Minister Elias Murr survived an assassination bombing ambush with minor and medium burns in Beirut’s suburban district of Naccache Tuesday. Local media reports spoke of one to four others killed in the explosion that ripped Murr’s motorcade to shreds.

The reports said Murr, 45, the son-in-law of President Lahoud, was helped out of his armor-plated four-wheeler Porsche by onlookers and was taken to the nearby Serhal hospital in Lebanon’s Christian heartland where he underwent a minor operation on one of his hands. His military aide de camp, Col. Elias Bayssari, reportedly suffered life-threatening wounds along with several other bodyguards.

The LBCI network quoted “initial reports” as saying a car bomb parked on one side of the road was detonated by remote control as the Murr convoy rumbled past. The explosion knocked out a 2-meter-wide crater in the pavement and flung the booby-trapped vehicle over the stone wall of an adjacent villa. The blast also broke shop glass veneers and house windows within a 700 meter radius.

Local TV footages from the scene north of the capital showed rescuers and riot police extracting several bloodied casualties from the motorcade as well as seven other smoldering cars.

Politicians from various shades of thought raced to the scene and then to the hospital. Among them was Saad Hariri, the majority leader of the new parliament who inherited his father’s political mantle after Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 14 assassination.

The bombing scene is close to several embassies and foreign diplomatic missions. Among the injured was the wife of Mexico’s ambassador who was rushed to the same hospital.

Like Lahoud, Murr has long been a Syrian prot????g???? in Lebanon’s politics. He is the first targeted pro-Syrian after a chain of assassinations left four anti-Syrian politicians dead– ex-Premier Hariri, his economy advisor Bassel Fleihan, An Nahar’s columnist Samir Kassir and communist ideologue George Hawi.

The previous assassinations were all blamed on Syria’s secret service by former anti-Syria opposition leaders who now form the majority of the newly-elected parliament. There was no immediate comment Tuesday on who may have engineered Murr’s attempted murder.

The attempt came amid reports of a clash between President Lahoud and Premier-designate Fouad Seniora on whether Murr would be retained as vice premier and defense minister in the new government.

As the report notes at the end, Murr would have possibly been the only old pro-Syrian to return to the government. This is a twist because all of the other bombs targeted anti-Syria politicians, which means the opposition simply had to go on TV and denounce Syria. Ya Libnan notes one of the rumors on the streets.

In the past incidents Syria was accused. Some analysts this time pointed fingures at Israel. 1 week ago, in a village called Hilaliyeh, in Mount lebanon, an Israeli agent was caught in an incident that resulted in wounding 5 people in a shoutout that was trying to create problems within the Druze community in the region.

That would be interesting indeed, though all too convenient for Hizb’allah which is trying to keep its arms against Israel as a relevant issue. So who did it? Mustapha said is depend on what part of the conspiracy theory spectrum you’re on.

The answer depends on where you stand in the conspiracy theory scale. Some would say that the Syrians targeted their own man, without informing president Lahhoud, to prove that the assassins are not just aiming at the anti-Syrians; a gambit perhaps to prove that Syria is not behind such attacks. This would also be meant to strengthen the argument of the Likes of Hezbollah, who have been arguing all along that the Israelis (or Americans) are the perpetrators, and would also clean the image of president Lahhoud, who can????????t possibly attack his own son-in-law.

Mr. Wael Abou Faour, a P.S.P spokesman, who was incidently on T.V. when the explosion took place, quickly addressed this. He said to Walid Abboud on L.B.C: ???????the fact that this unfortunate attempt targeted a pro-Syrian this time does not mean that we take back our accusations regarding the previous attempts”

Which brings us to the other extreme of the conspiracy spectrum: The culprit is no other than Jumblat himself, who did it for revenge reasons.
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It is still early to know how this attempt will affect the Lebanese, but we can get a good idea by watching the reactions of the different parties, like the American Embasador, Hariri, Aoun and Lahhoud. Also indicative would be the kind of funeral Murr????????s aids will have and the speech he would make.

But never underestimate the symbolism behind the fact that the Lebanese Defense Minister couldn’t defend himself.

You really can’t blame them. The Middle East is a place where the truth is generally hard to get and real government conspiracies do take place on a frequent basis. This bombing is pretty bizarre to say the least. It will be interesting to see who the final culprit is.