Lebanon leaders call for unity after Aridi assassination car bombing

Lebanese leaders urged for calm on Thursday after the country’s first political assassination in months threatened efforts to reconcile its divided factions.

The killing of Druse Sheik Saleh Aridi, a senior member of the Lebanese Democratic Party, came less than a week before planned reconciliation talks among rival Lebanese factions.

It was the first such assassination since an Arab-brokered agreement was reached after sectarian fighting in May involving Shiite Hezbollah militants and pro-government Sunni and Druse factions. That agreement led to the election of a new president and the formation of a national unity Cabinet.

Aridi died late Wednesday in his village of Baissour in the hills east of Beirut, after a bomb planted under his car was detonated by remote control as he drove away from his home, police said. Six other people were injured.