Syrian officer involved in Hariri death killed in Damascus car bomb

October 6, 2008

//Jerusalem Post//

-- A Syrian intelligence officer who was involved in the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in February 2005 was killed in the car bomb attack in Syria on September 27, Syrian opposition representative Sheikh Abdullah Hamidi told Israel Radio on Sunday.

Hamidi said Syrian intelligence officer Abed al-Karim Abbas drove the booby-trapped truck, which was used to target Hariri, to the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

According to Hamidi, Abbas was killed when a car bomb went off near a security office complex in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Seventeen people were killed and fourteen were wounded in the deadliest attack to strike the country in more than a decade.

The explosion also knocked down part of a four-meter-high wall surrounding a security complex that houses several buildings in the Sidi Kadad area.