Lebanon's Ongoing Crisis

As some of you may have seen on the news, Lebanon is not in a good state. Two posts ago I detailed Lebanon's ongoing political crisis. There have been no developments on the political scene, but there has been an increase in violence.

Last Friday there was a bombing in the Christian suburb of Hazmiyeh, and Capt. Wissam Eid, a senior police intelligence official, was killed along with ten others. Over thirty people were injured. The bombing was relatively close to Alex's workplace, about a mile. According to him and co-workers they could hear and feel the bomb - he managed to get a picture which I have posted.

Only two days later, on Sunday, there were clashes between opposition forces and the army. The protests began against power outages, but turned bloody. The protesters burned tires and blocked the roads, but the army acted quickly to disperse them. Shooting began soon after and seven were killed, more than 30 injured. In another part of town a protester threw a hand grenade and injured several people.

So far there have been no other incidents. Hopefully the situation will remain calm, as we bide out our remaining three weeks. I will certainly keep you updated on the news.