The former finance minister of Lebanon, Mohamad Chatah, died on Friday, along with five other people, when a explosives-filled car struck his in Beirut. Seventy-one other people were injured during the explosion.
According to The Wall Street Journal, no one has stepped forward to take responsibility for the car bomb. Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri has said that Hezbollah is to blame for the car bomb.
The bombing was similar to ones that occurred several years ago, one of which killed Hariri's father and the country's former prime minister. A United Nations tribunal has since declared that attack to be on Hezbollah.
Hariri spoke of the bombing saying, "Those who assassinated Mohamad Chatah are the ones who assassinated [Rafiq] Hariri, and who want to assassinate Lebanon and humiliate and weaken the state." The former PM has been living in exile in Paris.
CNN reports that Chatah's last tweet was also about Hezbollah, which noted that the party was seeking special "powers in security & foreign policy matters that Syria exercised in Lebanon for 15 yrs."
The former finance minister has long taken views against the Shiite militant group and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Chatah has spoken out against both for their use of violence against Lebanon and is known to have some Western-leaning views.
image: Wikimedia Commons
