Lebanon bomb blast kills 4, hurts security officer

BEIRUT, Sep 5 (Reuters) A roadside bomb blast killed four bodyguards of a senior Lebanese intelligence officer, who was among four other people wounded in the attack near Lebanon's southern city of Sidon today, police said.

The officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Samir Shehadeh, holds a senior post in the Interior Ministry's intelligence branch and has played a leading role in Lebanon's investigation into last year's killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Lebanon's Acting Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat said Shehadeh was in stable condition.

Police said the bomb was detonated by remote control as two cars carrying Shehadeh and his companions passed through the coastal village of Rmeileh. Shehadeh was in the second car.

A decoy, Sergeant Wissam Harb, was killed in the passenger seat of the first car. Three policemen in the two cars who had been seriously wounded later died in hospital.

''It is obvious from the decoy operation that saved him that there were expectations (of an attack),'' Fatfat told Future television, which is owned by the Hariri family.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, which occurred ahead of a report this month by UN investigator Serge Brammertz on his inquiry in Hariri's killing. The Lebanese government plans in the next few weeks to authorise an international tribunal to try the culprits. An initial UN report said Syrian security officials and their allies in Lebanese security agencies were involved in the bomb blast that killed Hariri in Beirut on February 14, last year.

Damascus has denied any role in the assassination, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in April last year.

Hariri's death was followed by more than a dozen bombings that killed or wounded anti-Syrian politicians and journalists.

The last such attack killed prominent Christian journalist and member of parliament Gebran Tueni on December 12.

Reuters MS RN1652