Bombing Outside Mosque Kills 10, Injures 60 in Lebanon

BEIRUT —  A bomb-laden car exploded outside a crowded, newly built mosque in Tripoli on Friday as Muslims attended noon prayers on their Sabbath. At least 10 worshipers and pedestrians were killed and about 60 were injured.

Police in Tripoli, the northern port that is Lebanon’s second-largest city, said the car, a blue Mercedes-Benz, was packed with 130 pounds of TNT. It blew up in front of the Imam Ali mosque, toppling a 10-foot-high concrete wall around the courtyard, blowing a six-foot hole in the ground and damaging buildings within a 500-yard radius.

Chunks of concrete rained down on people, and part of the mosque collapsed, the Lebanese state radio said.

Residents said the explosion shook the entire city. They said bursts of machine-gun and rifle fire echoed moments after the blast as militiamen of the Sunni Muslim fundamentalist group Tawhid (the Islamic Unification Movement), encircled the neighborhood.

The mosque was built only two months ago by the militia, which is led by Sheik Said Shaban. An influential sheik who advocates a return to the caliphate government system that prevailed during the early days of Islam, Shaban is opposed to Syrian influence in his area. At the same time, he maintains good relations with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, a foe of Damascus.

Shaban left Tripoli earlier this week for an intended visit to Tehran and a meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

But he returned to Tripoli on Wednesday, saying he had decided to cancel the trip. The Muslim leader gave no explanation.

Shaban is believed to have about 2,000 militiamen, and they are a major power in Tripoli. Until three months ago, Tawhid was engaged in an on-again, off-again war for dominance in Tripoli against the Syrian-backed Arabian Knights militia of the Arab Democratic Party. At that time, the two sides signed a peace agreement under Syria’s sponsorship.

Residents of the bombing area said Friday that more than a dozen cars parked outside the mosque were set ablaze and that firemen struggled for more than an hour to bring the flames under control.

Tripoli is the hometown of Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim ally of Syria, who brought Lebanon’s principal warlords into a coalition Cabinet supported by Damascus last April in an attempt to end the nation’s decade of civil strife.