Update 02 (09:00 PST): CNN International says 8 killed - Eido and seven others, including his son and bodyguards. Brent Sadler: Eido "was targeted, they say, by a bomb that went off while his car was passing... this will be seen as a blow to anti-Syrian political forces". They've got Druze leader Walid Jumblatt on the phone - he began by saying this was "by the Syrian regime", and then claimed that it was fomented by Syria. He's saying that Syria is trying to physically reduce the number of anti-Syrian MPs in the Lebanese Parliament. Jumblatt: if another three MPs are killed, the anti-Syrian majority will be overturned and a pro-Syrian regime would be imposed on Lebanon.

Update 01 (08:45 PST): It was an assassination of leading anti-Syrian MP Walid Eido. We're getting this from Brent Sadler, CNN's Beirut Bureau Chief: the target was close to Hariri, "there is concern that the kind of scale of carnage we see in Iraq" could come to Lebanon. "Many Lebanese talk openly about this". Report now online.

Original:
CNN is reporting a not insignificant explosion, with an unknown number of people dead. At least four - CNN is cutting in and out of the story so it's hard to get any more details and there's nothing online yet. If it's political rather than criminal - and honestly, we don't know enough about their internal situation to make even an educated guess - we expect that Beirut Spring and Across the Bay and From Beirut To The Beltway will be updating in short order. We'll also update if it's anything huge, but at worst it's probably just Assad taking out another opponent - which means another two months of EU diplomats rushing to Damascus asking him to be nice.

Previously:
* World To Give More Reconstruction Aid To Lebanon. Still Nothing For Israel.
* Kids Being Brainwashed To Hate Jews In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Gaza, Egypt, Iran, Etc Etc [Videos]
* France Identifies the Real Threat To the Lebanon Ceasefire: Israel.