Tensions in Beirut remained high on Saturday as protesters angry over the killing of a Sunni security official in a bombing burned tires and garbage containers.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A day after a powerful bomb ripped through the Christian quarter of this city, killing a top security official and seven others and raising new fears that Syria’s civil war was spilling over into Lebanon, Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he offered to resign in a move that cast doubt on the durability of this country’s shaky coalition government.
Mr. Mikati said President Michel Suleiman was, so far, unsure of what he would do and “asked me to stay for a while longer as he discusses the situation.”
The offer to resign is partly a reflection of Lebanon’s continuing sectarian tensions, which are in danger of being stoked by the 19-month uprising across the border in Syria. Mr. Mikati is a Sunni, while Hezbollah, a Shiite group, and his other partners in the government are considered supporters of Syria’s leadership in its brutal fight against a mainly Sunni uprising.
“I am going through a very critical phase because my sect feels that it is being targeted,” Mr. Mikati said in a news conference on Saturday, which was declared a national day of mourning. He also said, “I would like to say we are in very hard times and only God himself knows our feelings at this time.”
Tensions in Beirut remained high as people affiliated with the opposition March 14 bloc, established as an anti-Syria group, staged protests burning tires and firing weapons in the air, as they called on the government to resign en masse following the bomb attack. The top Lebanese intelligence official who was killed, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, was a Sunni who was seen as a supporter of the Syrian rebels fighting to oust the government headed by Bashar al-Assad.
The northern Lebanese city of Tripoli was similarly tense, with gunmen in the streets and shops closed. The army, however, was also present.
Mr. Mikati suggested that he thought the Syrian government — which has historically been deeply involved in Lebanese affairs — was behind Friday’s bombing. General Hassan had been under threat ever since the August arrest of a Lebanese politician who was pro-Syria, Michel Samaha, on terrorism charges for allegedly plotting to use explosives to stoke sectarian violence within Lebanon.
On Saturday in Syria, warplanes struck Maarat al-Numan in Idlib Province, destroying five homes, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an anti-government activist group. Meanwhile, activists reported that dozens of shells had landed in a Damascus suburb. In honor of General Hassan, representatives of the Free Syrian Army, under whose banner myriad units fight in opposition to the Syrian government, said they had renamed a brigade in Damascus in his name.
Meanwhile, Lakhdar Brahimi, the envoy representing the United Nations and the Arab League, met on Saturday in Damascus with Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Muallem, in an attempt to secure a cease-fire for a three-day Muslim holiday that begins next week. Turkey has backed the calls for a cease-fire, and earlier in the week Mr. Brahimi visited Iran, which is aligned with the Syrian government, to build support for the truce.
Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut, and Tim Arango from Istanbul. Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut.
