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June 2, 2005

Lebanonwire

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Anti-Syria journalist becomes latest victim of Lebanon political violence

BEIRUT, June 2 (AFP) - Prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir was killed Thursday when his car blew up in a neighborhood of mostly Christian east Beirut.

Kassir's murder comes in the wake of the February slaying of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and is the latest in a string of assassinations to strike Lebanon during and since the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

The perpetrators, in most cases, have never been established, and the attacks have gone unclaimed.

- March 7, 1975: Maarouf Saad, a leading Sunni Muslim figure in the southern city of Sidon -- Hariri's birthplace -- died after being wounded in a demonstration, an event that was regarded as one of the catalysts that triggered the war.

- March 16, 1977: left-wing leader Kamal Jumblatt, head of Lebanon's Druze community, was assassinated in his stronghold of Shuf, southeast of Beirut.

- June 13, 1978: Tony Frangieh, an MP and son of former Lebanese president Soleiman Frangieh was killed along with his wife, daughter and 31 supporters by a Christian militia commando in his house in the northern town of Ehden.

- September 10, 1978: spiritual leader of the Shiite Muslim community in Lebanon, Imam Mussa Sadr, disappeared at the end of a trip to Libya.

- April 26, 1982: Prominent Sunni figure Sheikh Ahmad Assaf was killed. A dozen other political figures were killed during the war including Islamic Council chief Sobhi Saleh, a moderate who backed Islamic-Christian dialogue, who was killed in October 1986.

- September 14, 1982: president-elect Bashir Gemayel was killed in a bomb attack at Phalangist militia headquarters just eight days before he was due to take office.

- October, 1986: Islamic Council chief Sobhi Saleh, a moderate who backed Islamic-Christian dialogue, was killed.

- June 1, 1987: Sunni prime minister Rashid Karameh, brother of current premier Omar Karameh, was killed by a bomb planted under his seat in a helicopter.

- May 16, 1989: Lebanon's grand mufti, Sheikh Hassan Khaled, the religious leader of the Sunni community, was killed in a car bombing that claimed at least 15 lives.

- November 22, 1989: president Rene Moawad was assassinated only 17 days after taking office in an attack in west Beirut in an attack that killed 15. He had been returning to Lebanon for independence day ceremonies following discussions in Saudi Arabia on the Taef accords that led to the end of the war.

- October 21, 1990: Christian leader Dany Chamoun, his wife and two of their children were killed in a commando raid on their home near Beirut.- January 24, 2002: ex-minister Elie Hobeika, former chief of the Lebanese Forces Christian militia, was killed in a Beirut suburb.

- October 1, 2004: Marwan Hamadeh, deputy head of the socialist party of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, was seriously injured in a car bomb attack.

- February 14, 2005: Former premier Hariri was killed in a Beirut explosion. A total of 19 others were killed in the attack and 220 wounded. The former deputy minister Bassel Fleyhane was gravely wounded and died on April 18.

Apart from Kassir's killing, three people have been killed and dozens injured in a series of bomb blasts since the assassination of Hariri. The following is a list of the attacks, which mostly took place late at night:

- March 19: A car bomb exploded in Jdeide, a northern suburb of Beirut, wounding 11 people.

- March 23: Three people were killed in an explosion in a Kaslik shopping centre, north of Beirut, that also wounded three.

- March 26: A car bomb attack in an industrial zone in northeast Beirut wounded six.

- April 1: Nine people were injured in an explosion in a commercial and residential neighborhood of Broumana in the Metn region east of Beirut.

- May 6: An explosion in the Christian coastal resort of Junieh north of Beirut wounded 29 people.

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