SIDON, Lebanon (AFP) — Soldiers shot dead a man they suspected of planning a suicide bombing at an army checkpoint near a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Saturday, an army spokesman said.
The incident came hours after a soldier was killed in a blast at an army intelligence post near the northern city of Tripoli and another explosive device was defused.
It was not known who was behind the incidents or what messages were intended as Lebanon seeks to form a national unity government after a deal ending a political crisis that brought the country to the brink of civil war.
"The man was preparing to attack an army vehicle," the spokesman said. "He was wearing an explosives belt containing two kilogrammes (4.5 pounds) of TNT and a kilo of metal that could have caused a lot of damage.
"Soldiers shot him down before the explosives belt could detonate."
The spokesman said the 28-year-old Palestinian, identified as Mahmud Yassin al-Ahmad, had arrived in the area in a car and begun approaching the checkpoint on foot when he dropped a hand grenade.
At that point, he turned and ran toward his car, apparently attempting to detonate the explosives belt, and was shot down.
Eyewitnesses said the incident was in an area adjacent to the Ein el-Helweh refugee camp that is controlled by the army, except for a portion considered to be a bastion of the Islamist group Jund Al-Sham (Soldiers of Damascus).
It was not immediately clear whether Ahmad belonged to the group of some 50 militants armed with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades and who have no clear hierarchy or particular leader.
"We do not know his political identity," the spokesman said.
On the outskirts of Tripoli, meanwhile, a soldier was killed in an explosion at his post, a security official said. It was unclear what caused the 5:00 am (0200 GMT) explosion in the Abdeh area near the northern outskirts of the city.
The army named the victim as Ussama Hassan, saying he was charged with keeping the peace in the Abdeh area.
The security official said the army found another device inside the post primed and ready to detonate but that explosives experts defused it before it went off.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora later told journalists he did not know whether Saturday's incidents were a message as he continues work on forming a cabinet that will be agreeable to Lebanon's various political factions.
Siniora, speaking after a meeting with newly elected President Michel Sleiman, the former head of the army, said "we would rather wait for the outcome of the investigation."
Lebanon's political deal was struck in Qatar between the Western-backed ruling bloc and the Hezbollah-led opposition called for Sleiman as president, the formation of a cabinet of national unity in which the opposition has veto power over key decisions and a new electoral law.
At least 65 people were killed in sectarian fighting earlier in the month, with fighters from the Shiite movement Hezbollah and allies seizing much of Sunni-dominated west Beirut before a deal was reached to hold talks in Qatar.
Sleiman was elected last Sunday and appointed incumbent Siniora to head the new government.
Ein el-Helweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, is home to 45,000 people and is outside the southern port city of Sidon.
Hundreds of civilians fled the densely populated camp in March after heavy clashes broke out between Fatah fighters and Jund al-Sham militants
Saturday's blast also comes a year after the army was involved in deadly battles with Islamist militants in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp just north of Tripoli.
More than 400 people were killed, including 168 soldiers, in more than three months of fighting which ended in September.
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