Grenade Rocks Tripoli's Bab al-Tebbaneh

A grenade exploded in the Tripoli neighborhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh on Friday without causing any casualties or damage, a security official said.

"The grenade went off on Friday evening just outside a Sunni Muslim cemetery in the neighborhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh at the border with the Jabal Mohsen district," the official told Agence France Presse.

"Fortunately there was no damage or injuries," he added, requesting anonymity.

Army patrols were immediately deployed to the area.

Tripoli has in the past few years been the scene of intense clashes between Sunni supporters of Saudi- and Western-backed acting premier Saad Hariri and Alawite Muslims loyal to a Hizbullah-led alliance backed by Iran and Syria.

The explosion comes as a deep political crisis grips Lebanon, sparking fears of an outbreak of violence at any given moment.

Hizbullah brought down Hariri's unity government last week in a long-running dispute over a U.N. tribunal probing the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, Saad's father.

For months, Hizbullah pressured Hariri to reject the tribunal, which the party has dismissed as part of a U.S.-Israeli plot.

Fear of unrest soared this week after the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued a sealed indictment in the case, which Hizbullah has said would include some of its members.