Western countries decried on Friday the Dahr al-Baydar suicide bombing that targeted an Internal Security Forces checkpoint which killed one and injured several.

The U.S. embassy in Beirut condemned the attack on its twitter account reiterating “support to Lebanon in its fight against terrorism.”

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Friday morning asked Speaker Nabih Berri to postpone an AMAL Movement ceremony over security concerns, before clarifying in the evening that the event was not the target of a specific security plot and it was canceled as a precaution.

“We obtained information from foreign countries about booby-trapped cars in Lebanon, so in order not to allow the terrorists to target a rally containing 1,800 people, we recommended that AMAL Movement's ceremony be canceled and this is why I called Speaker Berri,” Mashnouq said in response to a reporter's question after a Higher Defense Council meeting at the Grand Serail.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq said that Friday's deadly bombing at a security checkpoint in the Bekaa's Dahr al-Baydar region was a dangerous security “violation,” but remarked that it was only an “exception.”

“No one can deny that what happened today was a dangerous development and one link of the chain of the open war on terror,” Mashnouq said after an exceptional security meeting at the Grand Serail, but stressed that the blast “was the exception, not the rule.”

Hizbullah on Friday called for confronting the “terrorist conspiracy” that is targeting the Lebanese, urging the completion of the “security achievements” that had led to stopping bombings for a long period of time.

“Regardless of the objectives and targets of the terrorist suicide bombing that occurred this morning at the Dahr al-Baydar checkpoint, this is a bomb attack targeted against Lebanon and its security and stability,” the party said in a statement.

The Hamra area in Beirut was the scene of a major crackdown over a suspected terror plot on Friday, with security forces arresting 102 people at a number of hotels, among whom only 17 remain in custody.

“Security forces arrested 102 people during the raids that were carried out today in the Hamra area and its surroundings, after obtaining information about the presence of terrorist groups plotting to stage security acts in Beirut,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Lebanese officials strongly condemned a bombing that targeted on Friday an Internal Security Forces checkpoint in eastern Lebanon amid rising fears of renewed violence in the country sparked by a stunning offensive by Sunni insurgents in nearby Iraq.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri called on “all Lebanese sects and parties to be vigilant and cautious and unite against the plot targeting Lebanon and the region, which only aims at inciting sedition.”

An armed group affiliated with the Qaida-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades is plotting to target a high-ranking security figure reportedly General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, media reports said on Friday.

Julie Abou Araj, an Israeli reporter, obtained the information from Israeli Mossad document, An Nahar newspaper reported.

Unknown assailants opened fire on Friday on a small pickup truck on Halba highway in the northern district of Akkar, the state-run National News Agency reported.

According to NNA, assailants in a Mercedes opened fire at a pickup loaded with watermelon on Halba-Arqa road, wounding one of its passengers.

A bombing rocked a Dahr al-Baydar checkpoint in the eastern Bekaa on Friday, killing at least one person and wounding 32 others amid reports that the blast aimed at targeting General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim.

Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) reported that a suicide bomber blew himself up in a vehicle near an Internal Security Forces checkpoint.

French sources raised questions on Friday on what the Free Patriotic Movement Chief Michel Aoun can offer if he was elected as Lebanon’s president, and on the possible guarantees that could be given by Hizbullah in that regard.

France and some of its partners in the region blamed Hizbullah and Iran for obstructing the presidential elections in Lebanon, the pan-Arab al-Hayat daily quoted French sources well informed on the situation in Lebanon.