Lebanese soldier killed in blast: security official
A Lebanese soldier was killed early on Saturday in a blast at an army intelligence post near the northern city of Tripoli and another explosive device was defused, a security official told AFP.
He said it was unclear what caused the 4 am (0100 GMT) explosion in the Abdeh area near the northern outskirts of the city.
The army named the victim as Ussama Hassan and said it had launched an investigation into the blast.
Hassan was charged with keeping the peace in the Abdeh area, a terse statement said.
The security official said that the army found another device inside the post primed and ready to detonate but that explosives experts defused it before it went off.
Investigators are trying to determine when the explosives were planted, the official said.
The deadly blast came as Lebanon seeks to form a new government of national unity following a deal to end an 18-month political crisis that brought the country to the brink of civil war.
The deal struck in Qatar between the Western-backed ruling bloc and the Hezbollah-led opposition called for the election of army chief Michel 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.
Sleiman was elected last Sunday and he appointed incumbent Fuad Siniora to head the new government.
Saturday”s blast also comes a year after the Lebanese 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 2007.