BAALBEK: A car bomb yesterday ripped through the main square of Hermel, a Hezbollah bastion in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, killing three people in the latest attack linked to Syria’s war, officials said.
A group calling itself Al Nusra Front in Lebanon, after a Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, said it was responsible for the blast and said it was a suicide attack, in a statement on social media.
A security official said the bomb exploded in front of Hermel’s main government building, which houses administrative offices as well as police and security posts.
Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said three people were killed and 31 wounded in the town located only about 10 kilometres from the Syrian border.
“Two of the bodies were unidentified. We don’t know whether one of them was a suicide attacker,” Khalil told Hezbollah’s Al Manar television channel.
It was the first bombing to hit Hermel since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011, and the fifth major assault on a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon since the Shia movement admitted it was fighting alongside President Bashar Al Assad’s forces in Syria.
“By the grace of God, an earthquake has shaken the bastion of Iran’s party in Hermel, in a martyrdom (suicide) attack by one of the lions of Al Nusra Front in Lebanon,” said the statement posted on Twitter.
The attack was staged “in response to the party’s crimes against children, women and Sunnis in Syria,” it added.
It was not immediately clear if the group is linked to Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and one of the main groups fighting to topple Assad.
President Michel Sleiman described the attack as “the latest in a criminal series that target Lebanon’s stability.”
“Immunising (Lebanon) from such terrorist groups will require solidarity between leaders and the people, and the rapid establishment of a government that is able to meet the challenges.”
Hezbollah has since last May been openly involved in Syria’s war. But Hezbollah MP Nawar Al Sahili said: “What happens in Syria stays in Syria... There must be no links made between our presence in Syria and these terrorist, criminal, cowardly explosions.”
AFP
