THE CIVIL WAR IN LEBANON may have already begun, or perhaps it never ended and is now entering a new phase after 16 years of relative calm. Yesterday a roadside bomb injured Lt. Col. Samir Shehade of the Internal Security Forces and killed four of his associates. Shehade had been assisting the U.N. investigation into the murder of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.

“The attempt was almost invariably linked to the investigation,” says Beirut Daily Star opinion page editor Michael Young. “And it targeted the number two person in an ISF branch considered to be controlled by the Hariri Camp.”