Army Blows up Booby-Trapped Vehicle on Fakha-Ras Baalbek Road

The Lebanese army blew up on Monday a booby-trapped vehicle found on the Fakha-Ras Baalbek road in eastern Lebanon, after firing an RPG-7 rocket on it, the military and the state-run National News Agency reported.

The army said in a communique that it blew up the car, which contained 170 kilograms of explosives, after the military expert inspected it and found difficulty in defusing it.

It launched an investigation to identify the suspects involved in the plot to blow up the vehicle, the communique added.

The driver of the silver Grand Cherokee has escaped, NNA said.

Reports said the vehicle had entered Lebanon with another Grand Cherokee that was used by a suicide bomber on Sunday in an attack in the town of al-Nabi Othman.

Later on Monday, MTV said a security cordon was imposed after another booby-trapped car was discovered in al-Labweh.

For its part OTV quoted al-Labweh municipal chief Ramez Amhaz as saying that a gray Grand Cherokee suspected of containing a bomb was being chased in al-Labweh's plain.

Sunday's car contained 100 kilograms of explosives, the army said.

Several people were killed and injured in the bombing.

A group calling itself the Baalbek Ahrar al-Sunna Brigade and al-Nusra Front in Lebanon made separate claims of responsibility for the bombing.

Voice of Lebanon radio VDL (93.3) said Monday's incident came as security forces and the army had information that six explosives-laden vehicles ready to be used for bombings had entered Lebanon from Syria.

Reports said the army carried out raids near Wadi al-Fakha to find four gunmen hiding there.

Soldiers also raided al-Nabi Othman and al-Labweh to find the booby-trapped vehicles, they said.

The bombing plots are seen in retaliation to the fall of Yabrud, a strategic Syrian town near the frontier.

Hizbullah fighters have been instrumental to Syrian President Bashar Assad's success on the battlefield, and support from the Iranian-backed fighters appears to have tipped the balance into the government's favor in Yabrud.