Suicide Car Bomber Targets Hizbullah Checkpoint, 3 Killed
A suicide car bomber killed on Saturday night three people at a checkpoint manned by Hizbullah in the district of Baalbek that lies in eastern Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported.
However, a Hizbullah-run TV station reported later that the suicide bomber did not kill anyone at the checkpoint. There was no immediate way to reconcile the contradictory reports.
The suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-rigged Range Rover at the checkpoint about 4.8 kilometers from the Syria border near the town of Khreibeh, NNA said.
It wasn't immediately clear if the casualties were bystanders or Hizbullah fighters.
The last such suicide car bombing occurred in February. Since July 2013, scores of people have been killed in more than a dozen suicide car bombings that have rocked the country.
The Saturday attack was linked to the war in Syria, similar to the previous bombings, as the spillover from the Syrian war raises sectarian tensions in the country.
Sunni jihadists, including the Islamic State group, have been trying to punish the Iranian-backed Hizbullah because its fighters are battling alongside forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
They have claimed responsibility for previous bombings in Lebanon that have targeted Shiite communities. But they have also increasingly targeted the Lebanese army itself, seeing it as aligned with Hizbullah fighters.
Tensions have ratcheted further in recent weeks, after militants from Syria overran the Lebanese border town of Arsal in early August, capturing and killing soldiers and police. The militants, including the al-Qaida linked al-Nusra Front and the extremist Islamic State group, are holding several soldiers and Internal Security Forces members as hostages.
At least three have been killed by their captors. Two have been beheaded by Islamic State militants, sparking days of violence against Syrian refugees in Lebanon and tit-for-tat kidnappings between Sunnis and Shiites.
Source: Associated Press, Naharnet
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