BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati will announce his resignation Saturday, according to government sources who met with him following Friday’s car bomb assassination in Beirut which claimed at least five lives and left 110 wounded.

According to the sources, Mikati said he could not bear the repercussions of the attack and had already informed his Cabinet of his decision to quit. He had also communicated his intention to resign to President Michel Sleiman and Speaker Nabih Berri, they added.

After heading a security and judicial meeting at the Grand Serail later in the evening, Mikati headed to the headquarters of the Internal Security Forces General Directorate, where he was briefed on the security situation. He then returned to the Grand Serail and issued a statement saying: “I will deal with the event with the appropriate decision during Saturday’s Cabinet session.”

The sources said this “appropriate decision” to which Mikati referred would be his resignation, in light of the fact that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of being behind the crime, and that this would demand of his Cabinet actions he would be unable to take.

The sources said Mikati’s final decision regarding his resignation would depend on the reactions of his allies as well as those of the March 14 coalition.