AFP-  A car bomb ripped through the Beirut city centre on Friday killing an adviser to former anti-Syria coalition prime ministers Saad Hariri and Fuad Siniora, the state news agency said.

Mohammad Chatah, a prominent economist who was also an ex-minister of finance and Lebanon’s envoy to Washington was assassinated when a car bomb targeted his convoy in the city centre, the sources said.

Chatah had served as adviser to former prime minister Fuad Siniora and his successor and ex-premier Saad Hariri, whose own father was assassinated in a huge Beirut seafront car bomb in February 2005 blamed on Syria.

He was killed as he headed to Saad Hariri’s mansion in the city centre of Beirut to attend a meeting of the March 14 anti-Syria coalition which backs the Syrian opposition struggle to topple the Damascus regime.