MIDDLE EAST:Four Lebanese were killed and 16 injured yesterday in a car bomb attack that apparently targeted US diplomats in Beirut as President George Bush continued his Middle East tour in Saudi Arabia.
Lebanese security officials and the state department in Washington said no US personnel had been killed in the blast in the Karantina area in the northeast of the capital, but confirmed that a locally employed driver of an embassy vehicle had been slightly injured.
There had been speculation that the US president might make an unannounced visit to Beirut during his eight-day regional tour to express his support for the western-backed government, which is locked in a power struggle with the Shia Hizbullah-led opposition. The Shia movement is supported in turn by Iran and Syria.
The US reported four dead, while Lebanese officials reported three deaths in the bombing. Mr Bush stayed in Riyadh, holding a second round of talks with senior Saudis and expressing the hope that Opec would consider the effect of current record high oil prices on the US economy. "Paying more for gasoline hurts some of the American families, and I'll make that clear to him," the president said before meeting King Abdullah.
Mr Bush's tour ends today after a short session with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh - far from any demonstrations in Cairo.
In a separate development that underlined the strategic significance of the Gulf, French president Nicolas Sarkozy signed an agreement setting up a permanent French naval base in the United Arab Emirates. -