Beirut: The Lebanese army defused a car bomb on Monday in the southern Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah, the military said in a statement, weeks after it was hit by two bombings.
The army said it called in bomb disposal experts after spotting a suspicious vehicle in the Maamura area of Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday afternoon.
“The vehicle turned out to be rigged with explosives,” it said, adding that the military experts were defusing it.
Lebanese army troops deployed in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut suburbs in September, taking over checkpoints in a deal struck with the powerful Shiite group after two massive bombings since July.
The security points were established after car bombings in the southern suburbs that killed 27 people on August 15 and wounded more than 50 on July 9.
Meanwhile, state media says military prosecutor Saqr Saqr has charged seven people with “acts of terrorism” over deadly mosque bombings in the northern city of Tripoli.
The National News Agency says Monday that three of those charged are in detention while the rest are at large.
The August 23 blasts, which targeted two Sunni mosques and killed 47 people, came less than two weeks after a deadly explosion in a Shiite neighbourhood south of Beirut.
At least one of the detainees comes from Tripoli’s neighbourhood of Jebel Mohsin, which is predominantly Alawite - the minority sect of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
