The international committee probing the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes has shown an "exceptional interest" in the Saleh Aridi assassination, especially that preliminary investigations detected similarities with the attempts that has targeted Samir Kassir, George Hawi and May Chidiak, Naharnet learned Friday.

Head of the international investigation team Daniel Bellmare has informed Lebanese Judicial, military and security authorities of his "interest in the outcome of preliminary investigations into the Aridi crime to decide whether the committee would delegate a team to survey the crime scene and go through evidence that could help in the investigation he is carrying out," according to information obtained by Naharnet.

Meanwhile, security sources said the remote-controlled bomb used to kill Aridi, a ranking official of the Lebanese Democratic Party,i was similar to devices that had been used to assassinate anti-Syrian figures Hawi and Kassir.

The 700-gram bomb also was similar to the device used in the abortive attempt to assassinate LBC Journalist Chidiac, who lost her arm and leg in the rather lethal blast that ripped through her car.

In Aridi's case, the magnet-empowered bomb was stuck to the bottom of the victim's Mercedes car below the base for the driver's seat and was detonated by remote control from "a short distance," the daily An-Nahar reported.

Aridi's driver, the report added, "informed investigators on the victim's movements in the last two days, the latest of which was attending an Iftar banquet at the Saha (square) Restaurant" on the main road leading to Beirut Airport, hardly two hours before he was killed by the car bomb explosion in his hometown of Baisour.

The report noted the Iftar banquet was sponsored by "a certain party." It did not identify the party, however.

Aridi drove straight from the restaurant to Baisour, 22 kilometers to the east.

Baisour was the theater of fierce clashes in May between the town's Druze and Hizbullah fighters who advanced from nearby Kaifoun, base for a giant relay station for Hizbullah's al-Manar television that was raided by Israeli jetfighters on Aug. 14, 2006.

Aridi is to be buried later in the day in Baisour amidst national mourning in the Aley province.