Beirut Terrorists Flub Attack on U.S. Diplomats

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January 15, 2008 2:03 PM

The terrorists who targeted a fully armored U.S. embassy vehicle in Beirut today missed their mark if they were aiming to kill a U.S. official.

Only two Lebanese guards, working for the embassy, were in the vehicle, according to U.S. officials briefed on the attack.

The guards had just dropped a U.S. official at the Beirut airport and were returning to the embassy on a heavily-traveled road at the time of the explosion.

A bomb was detonated as the U.S. vehicle passed by. At least three Lebanese civilians were killed, and one of the guards was injured. Also injured, according to officials, was an American bystander, identified by the Associated Press as Minnesota native Mathew Clason, who was at a nearby church when the explosion took place.

"The windows blew in, and I fell down -- I was knocked out. I don't know exactly what happened," Clason, who had been in Lebanon for two weeks, told AP Television News while sitting in the
emergency room corridor of Jeitawi Hospital in Beirut. His head and right leg were bandaged.

The U.S. vehicle was heavily damaged, but the second embassy guard was able to walk away from the attack with only minor injuries.   

The U.S. Embassy immediately canceled a banquet for departing Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, scheduled for Tuesday evening at Beirut's seaside Phoenicia Hotel.

Before Tuesday's bombing, the last American killed in Lebanon was a missionary gunned down in 2002 at a Christian center where she worked as a nurse. At the time, Bonnie Penner, 31, was the first U.S. citizen killed in the country in more than a decade.

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