Beirut, Lebanon ? A bomb exploded on a narrow street crowded with bars and restaurants late Friday, wounding 12 people just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the area, officials said.

The blast, from a bomb placed near a car parked in front of a restaurant, panicked the hundreds of people dining or smoking water pipes in the bustling sidewalk cafes on popular Monot Street. Lebanese families and Arab tourists scattered.

Three cars were damaged by the 50-pound bomb. Security and hospital officials said 12 people were wounded.

Lebanon has seen a string of bomb assassinations of politicians and other figures in recent months – almost all opponents of Syria. But Friday’s blast did not appear to have a particular target.

Instead, the attack was a “message” to the new government, announced this week and dominated by anti-Syrian ministers, said Tourism Minister Joseph Sarkis. He said the blast aimed to shake security and scare off the thousands of tourists, mainly from oil-rich Gulf countries, who spend summer vacations in Lebanon.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, center, lays a wreath on the grave of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri Friday in the Martyrs' Square, in Beirut, Lebanon. Hours after Rice left the country a bomb exploded in front of a restaurant on a popular street.

“It is a message against the government, against national reconciliation and national unity,” Sarkis told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel.

Rice made a surprise visit Friday to give her support to the new government, whose creation crowns the crumbling of Syria’s long domination of Lebanon – a major U.S. goal. She left the country several hours before the blast, but earlier in the day visited the grave of slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri about 600 yards from the site of the explosion.

Hariri’s slaying, in a massive explosion that killed 20 other people on Feb. 14, sparked widespread protests against Syria, which many people blamed for the assassination. Since then, two other anti-Syrian politicians have been killed by bombs placed in their cars, and a bomb wounded the outgoing defense minister, a supporter of Syria.