Twelve reported dead in Lebanon blast
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tuesday February 13, 4:21 PM
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Twelve reported dead in Lebanon blast*
Twelve people were reported killed when two buses were hit by an
explosion in a village north of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Private television station LBC, quoting military sources, said 12 people
were killed, although there was no immediate confirmation.
Civil defence official George Kettaneh said that ambulances had taken
the dead and injured from the scene in the village of Ain Alak in the
Metn region north of Beirut.
The blast, whose cause was not immediately known, comes on the eve of
the commemorations for the second anniversary of the killing of former
Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
"For the moment, all we know is that an explosion targeted two buses," a
security source said, without giving details of any victims or the
precise nature of the blast.
Lebanon has been rocked by a wave of killings and attacks against
prominent anti-Syrian figures since the killing of Hariri in a massive
Beirut truck bombing on February 14, 2005.
Political tensions are continuing to run high, with the pro-Syrian
opposition holding an open-ended protest in Beirut aimed at forcing out
the Western backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
The anniversary of Hariri's assassination on Wednesday also falls six
months to the day since a UN-brokered ceasefire brought an end to a
devastating war between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite fundamentalist
group Hezbollah.
Six ministers from Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies quit the
government in November largely over the cabinet's endorsement of a UN
tribunal to try suspects in the Hariri bombing.