Just one day after the anti-Syrian Opposition swept to victory in parliamentary elections, another political assassination strikes Beirut. George Hawi, 65, was killed instantly at around 10 AM, when a bomb detonated in his car as he was getting into it, in the Wata Musaitbi neighbourhood of Beirut, said an Interior Ministry spokesman.

Hawi is the third prominent anti-Syrian to be killed this year, and the second this month. Distinguished journalist, Samir Kassir, was murdered in a nearly identical approach on June 2. The opposition blamed Kassir's murder on Syria.

Hawi died instantly in the blast.

"After the explosion, the car kept going and then I saw the driver screaming and he jumped out of the window. We rushed to the car and saw Hawi in the passenger seat with his guts out," eyewitness Rami Abu Dargham, told Reuters.

"Hawi was still alive and told the two of us, 'Help me, help me.' His face was bloodied, his abdomen was badly injured. Then he died," another eyewitness reported, refusing to be named for fear of trouble with security services.

Hawi's wife, ophthalmologist Sossie Madoyan, ran to the site, and fainted when she saw the carnage.

Take note some of the following pictures from the crime scene are very GRAPHIC, reader discretion advised:

Relatives of slain former Lebanese Communist party leader George Hawi cry at the scene of the bomb blast

Sabah, right, sister of slain George Hawi, cries at the scene of the bomb blast

President Emile Lahoud (R) escorted by Colonel Mustafa Hamdan (L), head of Lebanon's presidential guard, who was questioned, as part of an international probe into the series of assassinations

A Lebanese man hangs portraits of Lebanon's former Communist party chief George Hawi in front of his devastated car

Lebanese colleagues mourn the death of George Hawi

Former leader of the Lebanese Communist Party George Hawi, (L) stands beside Anwar Yassin, a former detainee in an Israeli prison, in this January 30, 2004 photo

Lebanese rescue workers carry a woman after she fainted at the site of the bomb blast

Rescue workers remove the body of former Lebanese Communist party chief George Hawi after his car exploded

A banner showing Lebanese politicians Walid Jumblatt and Saad Hariri, and their slain fathers, hangs above the site where former Lebanese Communist party chief George Hawi was assassinated

Sources: Ya Libnan, Yahoo, , AP, Reuters