Bomb Found on Jet About to Carry Lebanon President

BEIRUT — Security agents today found a 220-pound bomb hidden on a jet scheduled to carry President Amin Gemayel to Yemen.

Security officials said the bomb was concealed in the cockpit of the jet at Syrian-controlled Beirut International Airport.

“There was a plot to assassinate the president,” said Communication Minister Joseph Hashem, a close aide of Gemayel. “The bomb was hidden underneath sophisticated equipment in the cockpit in a way that made it difficult for anyone to discover.”

The security agents searching the Middle East Airlines plane before it was to take off discovered the explosive and immediately called in a bomb-disposal expert who dismantled the device.

The jet was scheduled to fly to Larnaca, Cyprus, to pick up Gemayel for his trip to the Yemen capital of Sana. Officials said Gemayel, a Maronite Christian, traveled to Cyprus by helicopter earlier today and was waiting for the plane.

Gemayel’s brother, Bashir, 33, was killed Sept. 14, 1982, along with 25 others, by a bomb at the Christian Falangist Party headquarters in Beirut a few days before he was scheduled to take office as president.