Suicide bomber strikes in east Lebanon, killing 2

BEIRUT — A suicide bomber detonated his vehicle Friday near a police checkpoint in eastern Lebanon, killing two people amid heightened concerns of renewed violence, the country’s state-run news agency and security officials said.

A senior Lebanese security official said the blast struck the town of Dahr el-Baidar, at the entrance to eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Troops sealed the area around the explosion, which occurred on the typically busy main Beirut-Damascus highway.

Still pictures aired by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station showed flames inside a pick-up truck and several other charred vehicles.

The security official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists, said the explosion killed two people and wounded at least six.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The official National News Agency said Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, the powerful head of Lebanon’s General Security Directorate, had driven past the site of the explosion in his convoy shortly before the blast.

Syria’s civil war has spilled over into neighboring Lebanon on multiple occasions and inflamed sectarian tensions. A series of car bombs have struck Shiite areas across Lebanon, killing dozens of people. Friday’s explosion, however, was the first in several months and came against the backdrop of soaring in tensions in the region after Sunni insurgents seized vast swaths of territory in northern Iraq.

Lebanon has been on edge, bracing for renewed violence as a result of the surge by Islamic extremists.

Security forces raided at least one hotel in Beirut’s bustling Hamra district Friday over suspected “terrorist cells” inside it, a police official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with security regulations and offered no other details.

U.S. Ambassador David Hale also cancelled a visit Friday to the Foreign Ministry for security reasons, Lebanon’s National News Agency said. The U.S. Embassy and the United Nations refugee agency also canceled a meeting scheduled for Friday afternoon in Beirut for security reasons.

A meeting organized by Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim Amal party scheduled to take place in Beirut also was canceled. The party is headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who was expected to attend the meeting. The event was scrapped based on information received by the Information Ministry of a terrorist attack that was being planned, a security official said.

The Lebanese are deeply split over the civil war in neighboring Syria and have lined up behind opposing sides in that conflict.

Lebanon, home to 4.5 million people, is struggling to cope with the presence of more than a million Syrian and Palestinian refugees in desperate need of housing, education and medical care.

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