Explosion hits American University
A small explosion went off at the American University of Beirut Monday night, only few hours after its visiting president met with Lebanese leaders and announced his decision to reside in Beirut.
The blast, caused by dynamite sticks thrown by unknown assailants over the campus wall, shattered windows in professors' quarters on campus and damaged a few cars. Panic-stricken students were roused from their sleep by the explosion.
Police said the assailants apparently threw the dynamite sticks over the campus wall on Beirut's seafront and fled in a motorcycle.
The attack Monday was the first on AUB since a car bomb explosion in 1991 which totally wrecked the prestigious College Hall building in the 131-year-old institution.
It was carefully planned to coincide with the visit to Beirut by John Waterbury, the president of the university who was appointed on July 7.
Few hours before the explosion, Waterbury visited Lebanese President Elias Hrawi and House Speaker Nabih Berri and announced to reporters his decision to reside in Beirut as of January 1998. Ironically, Waterbury thanked the Lebanese government for improving security in the country, allowing him to make this decision.
"I thank the government for establishing the conditions of security and stability in the country that will allow me to come here to Lebanon and to reside here," he said.
"I will be the first president of AUB to take up residence in Beirut for 13 years and it is through the efforts of ... the entire Lebanese government that the circumstances have been created to allow that," Waterbury added.
No AUB president has served from Beirut since the on-campus assassination in 1984 of Malcolm Kerr, then president of the university.
Previous presidents ran the university from New York because of a ban on American travel to Lebanon imposed in 1987, when Lebanon was a haven for kidnappers and attacks against westerners.
On July 30, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright lifted the ban and replaced it with a travel advisory.