BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) – Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his Phalange Party Voice of Lebanon radio station reported.

The shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon, where the leading Muslim Shiite party Hezbollah has threatened to topple the government if it does not get a bigger say in Cabinet decision-making.

Gemayel was rushed to a nearby hospital, according to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. and the Voice of Lebanon, the Phalange Party mouthpiece reported. The party later announced that he was dead.

Gemayel, the minister of industry and son of former President Amin Gemayel, was a supporter of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, which is locked in a power struggle with pro-Syrian factions led by Hezbollah.

He was named for his grandfather, who founded the Phalange Party in 1936 to exert Christian power in Lebanon. It dominated Christian politics for decades after Lebanon’s independence from France in 1943.

During the civil war, the Phalange had the largest Christian militia that fought Muslim forces and Palestinian terrorist. The death of the senior Pierre Gemayel in 1983, the shrinking Christian community and internal dissent have seriously weakened the party, which could not get its own leader elected to parliament in 2000.

Amin Gemayel served as Lebanon’s president from 1982 to 1988. He was elected by parliament after the assassination of his brother, Bashir, who was chosen president but was killed a few days before he was to take office.