(AFP PHOTO/STR)
AFP- A car exploded near a Hezbollah post in eastern Lebanon on Tuesday, leaving casualties, the Shi’a militant group and a security source said.
The blast caused “deaths and injuries,” the security source told AFP, declining to be named.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television said an unspecified number of people were wounded in the attack near the Shi’a village of Sbuba.
It said an SUV parked near the Hezbollah post blew up when members of the militia, which controls much of the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon along the border withSyria, approached the vehicle.
The vehicle was packed with 60 kilos (130 pounds) of explosives and the blast left behind a crater three metres (10 feet) wide, Al-Manar said.
“Other Hezbollah members rushed to the scene and opened fire, thinking the others had been ambushed, and then helped the wounded,” it said.
An AFP photographer saw four burned out vehicles at the post, one of many manned by Hezbollah in the Bekaa, which hosts tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, who now account for a fifth of Lebanon’s resident population.
Residents told AFP the Hezbollah position was used by the militia as a staging post for its vehicles and fighters, especially those headed for Syria to fight alongside government forces.
The Lebanese army said the car bombing occurred at 2:50 am (0050 GMT) on the Sbuba-Nabi Mussa road and that military police were investigating.
Lebanon’s NNA news agency reported that Hezbollah militiamen had already intercepted two car bombs earlier on the same road.
The Shi’a militant group has been the target of repeated attack by suspected Sunni hardliners since its leader Hassan Nasrallah publicly confirmed in April that its fighters were engaged in the Syrian conflict alongside President Bashar Al-Assad forces against mainly Sunni rebels.
In recent months, several blasts have struck Hezbollah targets in both the Bekaa and Beirut.
On November 19, two suicide bombers targeted the Iranian embassy in a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut, killing 23 people.
