Brigadier General Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces, was killed on Friday in a car bomb attack in the Beirut district of Ashrafiyeh, state-run National News Agency reported. The powerful explosion rocked a street adjacent to Sassine Square in Ashrafiyeh, leaving seven other people dead and 78 others wounded, in the first such attack in the Lebanese capital since 2008. Hasan was close to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and hostile to the regime in Syria. He had been tipped to take over as ISF head at the end of this year. [Link]