Explosion targets Lebanese army

Security sources said that one bomb went off near a barrack for the Lebanese army in Beirut today at dawn during which one car was destroyed but no casualties were reported.

The explosion took place at 2 a.m. at dawn in al-Ramla al Beida area west of the Lebanese capital.

Security officials said the explosion took place in the surrounding of the wall of Fakher Eddine army barrack, hours after a local news paper said it had received a telephone threat about an explosion which will take place shortly targeting a military establishment.

Al-Jazeera satellite tv said that the caller notified "al-Balad" daily that he is from al-Qaida organization and threatened to blow up several buildings including the building of the internal security forces and the justice palace unless the Lebanese authorities will free detainees accounted for al-Qaida organization.

The correspondent quoted the Lebanese official as saying that the security forces traced the telephone call and found out it came from Ein al-Helweh camp for the Palestinian refugees in South Lebanon.

At the beginning the security forces indicated that the explosion resulted from a booby trapped car explosion but they said again that the explosion is most expectedly resulted from explosives placed under the car or near it.

Al-Jazeera said that this explosion is the first of its kind which targets a military barrack for the Lebanese army. Preliminary investigations show that the bomb was thrown by a cyclist and made a gap in the wall of the barrack.

Lebanon was exposed to 14 explosions in 2005, the worst of which claimed the life of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri and 20 of his companions

The last explosion took place on December 12, 2005 when one booby trapped car went off in the quarters of Beirut and killed the Lebanese parliamentarians and Journalist Jubran Tweini.