Yesterday a car bomb in Beirut killed a senior Lebanese security chief along with seven others, while wounding hundreds in Ashrafiyeh, a busy neighborhood in Christian-majority East Beirut. The target, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, was close to former prime minister Saad Hariri and his late father, Rafik Hariri. Yesterday evening, Hariri supporters, mostly Sunnis, closed down roads and burned tires in protest against the assassins, almost certainly tied to the Syrian regime and their Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

The bombing and murder of Hassan marks a return to the period of 2005-2008, when Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his allies embarked on a campaign of violence, including bombings in residential areas and assassinations of Lebanese figures opposed to the regime in Damascus. That era kicked off with the Feb 14, 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, and ended only after Hezbollah’s May 2008 siege of Beirut and the Chouf mountains. This conflict led to the Doha accords, which paved the way for the Shiite militia to take control of the government. The current campaign may turn out to be even bloodier for the stakes are higher—to ensure not only the continuation of Hezbollah’s hegemony, but also the Syrian regime’s survival. Assad is counting on the international community, led by the White House, to rescue him from the twenty-month long uprising that seeks to bring his regime down on his head.