Lebanese President Emile Lahoud issued a new appeal for national dialogue on Saturday, hours after a bomb blast in a Beirut suburb sparked fears of a return to sectarian violence.
Eleven people were wounded shortly after midnight when the bomb exploded beneath a car in the Christian residential neighborhood of Jdeide, causing extensive damage, police said.
Citing "exceptional circumstances," Lahoud called for dialogue between the country's anti-Syrian opposition and parties sympathetic to Damascus. He said that was now critical in order to "protect Lebanon."
Lahoud may also decide to skip this week's Arab summit in Algiers in the face of a deepening political crisis, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. reported Saturday.
"It is under examination and there is no decision yet," a source close to the presidency told AFP.
Saturday's blast was the first serious incident since popular former premier Rafiq Hariri and 18 other people were killed in a huge bombing in Beirut February 28, an attack that ignited public fury and stepped up calls for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.
The killing has been blamed by the Lebanese opposition on Syrian and Lebanese agents, a charge denied by Syria and pro-Syrian Lebanese authorities.
It also plunged Lebanon into political turmoil, sharpening an already acute rift between the opposition and pro-Syrian groups. A reappointed pro-Syrian prime minister has so far been stymied in his bid to form a new government and the country is paralysed politically.
"Terrorism strikes again in the heart of Jdeide," read the headline in the French-language newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour.
"The perpetrators are by all evidence looking to sow panic in the population by recalling the worst moments of the civil war and in striking at the heart of a residential district," it said.
Lebanese interviewed on downtown Hamra Street early Saturday voiced anxiety but tried to take the explosion in their stride, hoping it was a score-settling criminal act and not a harbinger of resurgence in the sectarian violence that ravaged Lebanon from 1975 to 1990.
"We can't help thinking that might mean a return to violence," said a lawyer who gave his name only as Cheib.
"We all have memories of the war here. But it was not a car bomb. According to the press it was placed under the car and maybe it was a personal matter. If they had wanted to do something big they would have put the bomb in the car and left it in a place where there were lots of people around."
Aida, a bookstore employee, said she was not afraid.
"Maybe it was something personal. Something like that could happen anywhere. I hope ... I hope ... People are thinking of other things right now, like peace first of all."
But for Christian MP Ayman Shoukar, a member of the opposition, there was little doubt as to who was behind the explosion.
"People are not afraid because they know who the perpetrators are, from the attack on Marwan Hamadeh and later Hariri. There is only one party responsible -- the intelligence services."
MP Marwan Hamadeh was hurt in a bomb attack last October.
Hamadeh and other anti-Syrian MPs have so far rebuffed calls by Prime Minister-designate Omar Karameh to join him in a national unity cabinet, leaving Lebanon in a state of political paralysis that threatens parliamentary elections in May.
Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt warned, meanwhile, there would be more attacks and assassinations in Lebanon until Lahoud was sacked and Lebanon's current intelligence apparatus dismantled.
But many Lebanese are nonetheless breathing easier these days as Syrian troops and intelligence agents are on their way home after a nearly 30-year presence.
Hariri's assassination sparked intense Lebanese and international pressure on Damascus to call the forces home in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution.
Already 4,000 troops are reported to have returned to Syria, with a remaining 10,000 redeployed to eastern Lebanon ahead of a full pullout.