Two attacks against army checkpoints prompts fear in Lebanon (Roundup)

May 31, 2008, 15:55 GMT

Beirut - An explosion shook the area near an army post Saturday in north Lebanon, killing one soldier, as the army managed to foil a second attack in southern Lebanon, Lebanese security sources said.

Lebanese soldiers killed a man late Saturday afternoon, as he was getting ready to blow himself up at the army checkpoint near the entrance of Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon.

A witness said 'the man was spotted by the soldiers as he was trying to push the button of his suicide belt, prompting them to fire and kill him immediately.'

The earlier bomb attack against the army took place in Abdeh, near the northern port city of Tripoli. One soldier was killed in the explosion.

The cause of the explosion in Abdeh was not immediately known and the army said it was investigating.

A Lebanese security source said it was caused by an explosive charge placed at an army position.

The army also managed to defuse another explosive charge in the same place before it exploded.

The soldier's death comes as Lebanon is recovering from sectarian clashes that ended in a political agreement between feuding factions and the election of the army commander Michel Suleiman as head of state.

Abdeh is near the devastated Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in northern Lebanon where fighting between troops and al- Qaeda-inspired Islamic militants erupted a year ago.

In May 2007 the camp was the scene of fierce battles between the army and the Sunni fundamentalist Fatah al-Islam, who were holed inside Nahr al-Bared on the outskirts of Tripoli.

The army crushed the group and killed most of its leaders. The head of the fundamentalist group with links to Osama bin Laden's al- Qaeda, Shaker al-Abssi, is still at large.

Usbat al-Ansar, a group of fundamentalists who have a base inside the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el Hilweh, have close links with Fatah al-Islam.

Fatah al-Islam announced its formation in the Nahr al-Bared camp in November 2006, shortly after two of its members were arrested by the Lebanese authorities.

Lebanese authorities say the organization works for the Syrian intelligence services. Syria denies such a link.

Al-Abssi is a Palestinian with suspected links to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the late Jordanian leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.