Less than a month after Walid Eido was assassinated, a hand grenade exploded Saturday near the home of another anti-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament, igniting a fire but causing no casualties. The attack took place at 11:40 PM, when unidentified assailants hurled a grenade from a forest about 150 meters (492 feet) away from the home of Ayman Shoukeir in the central mountain town of Ras el-Maten. Shoukeir was not at home, and no damage was reported, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements. Civil defense workers put out the small fire that was started by the explosion, they said.
Shoukeir is a member of anti-Syrian Druze leader Walid Jumblatt's parliamentary bloc. There has been a string of explosions in Lebanon in the past two years, most of them targeting anti-Syrian politicians or journalists.
The last such explosion was the June 13 car bomb that killed Walid Eido, a pro-government lawmaker and fierce critic of Syria. He was the seventh high-profile anti-Syrian personality assassinated in the last two years. The Lebanese government believes that Syria is behind the previous string of political assassinations in an attempt to re-occupy the sovereign republic of Lebanon.