Attack near Syrian border kills several, comes hours after a Syrian al-Qaeda offshoot executes a Lebanese soldier.
BEIRUT (AFP) — A suicide bomber killed a number of people Saturday at a Hezbollah checkpoint near Lebanon’s border with Syria Saturday, hours after news that the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda had executed a Lebanese soldier.
Lebanon has long been on edge over the three-and-a-half-year civil war in Syria. Violence frequently spills over into the country and troops have been battling jihadists in eastern Lebanon sporadically since August.
Hezbollah’s fighters have been supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a war against mostly Sunni Muslim rebels.
A security official in the Lebanese city of Baalbek said Saturday a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Hezbollah checkpoint in the Khraybeh area in the Bekaa Valley.
“The Hezbollah fighters at the checkpoint were all killed” and a number more nearby were wounded, he added, without saying how many there were in total.
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