BEIRUT, Lebanon — A vehicle packed with explosives detonated at a military post of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley early on Tuesday, causing casualties among Hezbollah members, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
According to the Hezbollah-affiliated television channel Al Manar, the post, in the town of Labweh, north of Baalbek, was a rotation point for Hezbollah fighters coming and going from Syria, where the Shiite militia has been fighting against rebels trying to topple the group’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad. The nearby town of Arsal is a transit point for Syrian rebels and Lebanese Sunni militants who have joined the uprising in Syria, and also shelters many Syrian refugees.
Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria has heightened political and sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where the population is sharply divided between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government. In August, twin car bombs struck southern Beirut neighborhoods where Hezbollah has many supporters, and were widely blamed on Syrian insurgents or their Lebanese sympathizers.
In interviews in Baalbek on Monday, residents said they were concerned that the town would be targeted by Syrian insurgents or their supporters because of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, although Baalbek is religiously mixed and includes Sunnis, Christians and some Shiites who do not support Hezbollah or its intervention.
“We are worried that someone could send a car bomb into the market,” said a woman who supports Hezbollah but is not a member, and who asked not to be identified because she feared alienating powerful local leaders.
Syrian rebels have occasionally shelled the outskirts of Baalbek and other towns in the Bekaa Valley. Such attacks have declined in recent months as Hezbollah has helped the Syrian Army push rebels out of some Syrian towns along the border, but fighting continues in the Qalamoun region on the Syrian side of the mountainous frontier.
Hezbollah relies on Syria as a land bridge for crucial military aid from Iran that it uses in its primary conflict with Israel. Hezbollah officials say that they are intervening in Syria to protect Lebanon and the region from extremists among the Syrian insurgents who consider Shiites to be apostates. But the fighting has cost the party support among the many Lebanese Sunnis who approve of its stance against Israel but criticize its decision to fight fellow Arab Muslims in Syria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/w...hezbollah-post-in-lebanon.html?src=twrhp&_r=0
According to the Hezbollah-affiliated television channel Al Manar, the post, in the town of Labweh, north of Baalbek, was a rotation point for Hezbollah fighters coming and going from Syria, where the Shiite militia has been fighting against rebels trying to topple the group’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad. The nearby town of Arsal is a transit point for Syrian rebels and Lebanese Sunni militants who have joined the uprising in Syria, and also shelters many Syrian refugees.
Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria has heightened political and sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where the population is sharply divided between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government. In August, twin car bombs struck southern Beirut neighborhoods where Hezbollah has many supporters, and were widely blamed on Syrian insurgents or their Lebanese sympathizers.
In interviews in Baalbek on Monday, residents said they were concerned that the town would be targeted by Syrian insurgents or their supporters because of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, although Baalbek is religiously mixed and includes Sunnis, Christians and some Shiites who do not support Hezbollah or its intervention.
“We are worried that someone could send a car bomb into the market,” said a woman who supports Hezbollah but is not a member, and who asked not to be identified because she feared alienating powerful local leaders.
Syrian rebels have occasionally shelled the outskirts of Baalbek and other towns in the Bekaa Valley. Such attacks have declined in recent months as Hezbollah has helped the Syrian Army push rebels out of some Syrian towns along the border, but fighting continues in the Qalamoun region on the Syrian side of the mountainous frontier.
Hezbollah relies on Syria as a land bridge for crucial military aid from Iran that it uses in its primary conflict with Israel. Hezbollah officials say that they are intervening in Syria to protect Lebanon and the region from extremists among the Syrian insurgents who consider Shiites to be apostates. But the fighting has cost the party support among the many Lebanese Sunnis who approve of its stance against Israel but criticize its decision to fight fellow Arab Muslims in Syria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/w...hezbollah-post-in-lebanon.html?src=twrhp&_r=0
