Oct 19th 2012, 18:39 by M.R. | CAIRO





A powerful car bomb in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, has shattered several years of relative calm in Lebanon, dramatically underscoring the danger of a spillover from the violence raging in neighbouring Syria. The mid-afternoon blast on Friday devastated a narrow residential street near Sassine Square, the busy focal point of the city’s largely Christian Ashrafiyeh district. Initial reports said at least eight people had been killed and as many as 94 injured. Just as during the spate of bloody assassinations-by-car-bomb that shook Lebanon between 2004 and 2008, most of these victims were hapless bystanders. The real target was one man, Brigadier General Wissam al Hassan.

As intelligence chief of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces, General Hassan had plenty of enemies.