The bomb targeted Mohamad Chatah, a former finance minister and a senior aide to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri
Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.
, in his car as he drove through central Beirut, Leb's National News Agency said, confirming what security sources had told numerous foreign news agencies. Chatah was also a former ambassador to the U.S.
The National News Agency said Chatah's driver was also killed, along with three other people. The Health Ministry said more than 70 others were maimed.
Leb has seen a wave of bombings over the past months as tensions rise over Syria's civil war.
Hariri heads the main, Western-backed coalition in Leb, which is engaged in bitter feuding with the hard boy Hezbollah group allied with allied to Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
Several recent bombings have targeted senior Hezbollah figures or districts where the Shiite group dominates.
The bombing recalled a string of liquidations of members of the anti-Syrian Hariri camp between 2004 and 2008, the biggest of which was the massive suicide kaboom in 2005 in downtown Beirut - not far from the site of Friday's blast - that killed Hariri's father, Rafik, also a former prime minister. Hariri's allies accused Syria of being behind the killings, a claim Damascus denied.
Friday's blast came less than three weeks before the trial for those suspected in Rafik Hariri's liquidation was set to begin. Five Hezbollah members have been indicted for alleged involvement in the killing. Hezbollah rejects the accusations, and has refused to hand over the suspects.
Saad Hariri indirectly blamed Hezbollah for Chatah's liquidation. In a statement, he accused "the ones who run away from international justice and refuse to appear before the international tribunal.