Al-Nusra Front Sends Bomb Message to Hizbullah
A bomb was found overnight in Hay al-Sellom area in Beirut's southern suburbs allegedly signed by Syria's al-Nusra Front rebel group and directed against Hizbullah, media reports said on Wednesday.
Hizbullah members cordoned off the area and prevented security forces and a military expert from reaching the scene.
Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) said that Hizbullah's military expert defused the bomb and moved it to an unknown place.
State-run National News Agency reported that the bomb is made of a glass bottle connected to an electric wire.
Slogans against Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hizbullah were written on it.
“May Bashar Fall. Death to Hizbullah. Al-Nusra Front.”
Lebanese parties are sharply divided over the crisis in Syria as the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance continuously expresses its support to Assad, while the March 14 camp backs the popular revolt.
The international community and analysts have expressed fears that the conflict in Syria may spill over into Lebanon.
On Tuesday, al-Qaida in Iraq said al-Nusra Front, the jihadist group battling Assad's regime, was part of its network and fighting for an Islamic state in Syria.
"It is time to declare to the Levant and to the world that the al-Nusra Front is simply a branch of the Islamic State of Iraq," leader of al-Qaida's front group in Iraq Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said in the audio message.
The groups will now be combined and called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Baghdadi said the group was willing to ally with other groups "on the condition that the country and its citizens be governed according to the rules dictated by Allah.”
Al-Nusra Front first gained notoriety for its suicide bombings in Syria but has evolved into a formidable fighting force leading attacks on battlefronts throughout the country.
Its suspected affiliation to al-Qaida's front group in Iraq led to it being labeled a "terrorist" organization by Washington in December.
Syria's conflict, now in its third year, is believed to have killed more than 70,000 people since it erupted in March 2011.
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