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"Three of the casualties were soldiers," as were 24 of the 30 wounded, a military official told AFP after the car bomb blast that targeted a military bus in Tripoli on Monday. Earlier, a security official had said six people were killed in the attack, the second deadly bombing targeting the Lebanese military in two months. The bomb, placed under a parked car at the southern entrance to the city, was packed with nuts and bolts and police suspect the device was detonated by remote control. It blew up as the bus was heading towards the capital Beirut during morning rush-hour, a military spokesman said. There were about 24 passengers on board.
Police and the army cordoned off the area as forensic experts began gathering evidence while residents rushed to the scene or to nearby hospitals to look for their loved ones. One man in his 50s wept and appealed for news about his son who he said was on board the bus. The force of the blast shattered windows and damaged cars nearby. The vehicle under which the bomb was placed was left a burned-out pile of twisted metal.
A similar explosion in August left 14 people dead, nine of them soldiers, in the deadliest attack in Lebanon in three years. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. "This attack is targeting security and stability in the country, undermining the reconciliation efforts that are taking place," the army spokesman said.
Other officials said they suspect the attack was aimed at undercutting the army's bid to secure Tripoli, which has has been rocked by deadly sectarian violence in recent months. Interior Minister Ziad Baroud called for an emergency meeting of security services to discuss the situation following the blast.
Tensions in the city have eased in the past few weeks after Lebanon's rival factions signed a reconciliation accord aimed at putting the lid on a political crisis that took the country to the brink of a new civil war earlier this year. "This attack targets the army's morale and seeks to rattle relations
between the military and the residents of Tripoli... following the expanded deployment of troops," Tripoli MP Moustapha Alloush told AFP.
The army last year fought a 15-week battle with the Al-Qaeda inspired Fatah al-Islam militia in Nahr el Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli that left 400 people dead, including 168 soldiers.
In June and July, 23 people were killed in battles between Sunni Muslim supporters of the government and their Damascus-backed rivals from the Alawite community in Tripoli. The fighting focused on the Sunni stronghold of Bab al-Tebbaneh and the mainly Alawite Jabal Mohsen district. There has been tension between the two communities ever since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and straddle the border into Syria whose President Bashar al-Assad is a follower of the faith.
Monday's explosion came as rival factions were working toward resolving their differences following a long-running political crisis that brought the country to the brink of civil war in May. The attack also took place amid heightened tensions in the region following a weekend bombing which left 17 people dead and 14 hurt in the capital of neighbouring Syria, Lebanon's former powerbroker. Syria's official news agency SANA said it was a suicide attack carried out by a "terrorist" with links to an Islamist extremist group.
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