Baalbek, Lebanon: A suicide car bomb attack killed four people late on Sunday in an area dominated by the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah near the Syrian border, a Lebanese security source told AFP.
The attack in the Bekaa Valley was claimed by the jihadist Al Nusra Front in Lebanon, as well as by a little known extremist Sunni group based in the region. The bomb killed two Hezbollah members, including local official Abdul Rahman Al Qadi, and a woman and her husband who died from their wounds shortly after the blast, the source said.
“A car-bomb attack has struck the village of Al Nabi Othman,” the source said. “The blast was carried out by a suicide attacker. Hezbollah members knew he was about to carry out the attack, and tried to stop the vehicle. That was when the attacker detonated the vehicle,” he added. After the attack, Al Nusra Front in Lebanon claimed responsibility via Twitter, describing it as a “quick response to the bravado ... of the party of Iran (Hezbollah) for their rape of Yabroud.”
The group, with suspected links to Syria’s Al Qaida affiliate Al Nusra Front, also warned Hezbollah of “jihadist operations to silence their tongues from singing about this shameful rape” or takeover of Yabroud. Earlier, the extremist Liwa Ahrar Al Sunna in Baalbek had also taken responsibility for the attack, describing it as “revenge for Yabroud.”
