Blog #8 Blast in Beirut Is Seen as an Extension of Syria’s War

 In Lebanon a powerful bomb destroyed a christian neighborhood on Friday. The blast sheared the faces off buildings, killed at least eight people, wounded 80 and transformed a quiet tree-lined street into a scene reminiscent of Lebanon’s long civil war. By nightfall, black smoke from burning tires ignited by angry men choked the streets of a few neighborhoods in the city, which has struggled to preserve a peace between its many sects, including Sunni, Shiite, Christian and Druse. The Syrians were blamed for the attack after it was announced that intelligence chief of the country’s internal security service, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan had been killed in the attack. However, there is evidence that this was not a planned attack seeing as the bomb was dropped in an elderly neighborhood. It was the first large-scale attack since 2008, and the most provacative since the unrest with Syria began 19 months ago.
In the midst of all of the chaos, neighbors did come to the aid of those who were affected far worse than themselves. The fact that even though the whole neighborhood was up in flames, people were still willing to help one another, this leads one to believe that their might actually be some hope for the human race.
Overall, there is no real clarity on what caused the attack to be held in an innocent neighborhood, other than the fact that a government official was there. I still cannot make sense of the logic behid whiping out a whole area just for one man.

10.25.12 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/world/middleeast/bomb-blast-in-beirut-lebanon.html