Investigation ongoing into Beirut car blast

Crime scene investigators sifted through the wreckage on Friday (January 3) of a car bomb that killed at least five people the previous day in Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold destroying several cars and tearing facades off buildings, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Shi'ite and Sunni targets in Lebanon.

Officials said five people were killed and 66 wounded in the blast on Thursday (January 2).

A security source said the blast was caused by a car bomb.

The explosion occurred less than a week after former finance minister Mohamad Chatah, a vocal critic of the Shi'ite Hezbollah militant group and its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was killed along with six other people by a car bomb in central Beirut.