ammonnews.net

Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - A suicide bomber blew himself up Friday morning at a police checkpoint on the Beirut-Damascus highway in east Lebanon, killing one police officer and wounding 32 people.

General Security Director-General Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim said he narrowly escaped the blast in Dahr al-Baidar.

"The explosion in Dahr al-Baidar occurred moments after the convoy I was in passed through the checkpoint," Ibrahim told a local television station.

The Interior Ministry said six security personnel were among the wounded in the explosion, which occurred around 11:30 a.m. The Health Ministry said the one person was killed and 32 others wounded.

The sources said that most casualties were from a civilian van caught in the blast, while the man killed was Mahmoud Jamaleddine, a warrant officer in the Internal Security Forces.

Military Prosecutor Saqr Saqr, who arrived to the site of the bombing, said the 4WD vehicle was rigged with at least 25 kilograms of explosives.

ISF chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous said the vehicle was originally headed to Beirut but security forces grew suspicious of the Nissan Murano in a certain location, "prompting the driver to return to the Bekaa."

"Members of the Internal Security Forces at the checkpoint stopped the vehicle and the driver blew himself up as police officers were searching car," Basbous told reporters upon his arrival to the site of the deadly blast.

After the blast, security forces blocked several roads in the capital, including the airport road and those leading to Speaker Nabih Berri's residence in Ain al-Tineh, Hamra, Verdun, the Kuwaiti Embassy, UNESCO as well as the military hospital, the NNA reported.

The attack came an hour after the ISF's Information Branch raided a hotel in Beirut looking for terror suspects, with a senior security source saying that police were “working on thwarting a big security plot.”

A security source told The Daily Star that security agencies had received intelligence that members from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) were preparing a suicide attack in Lebanon.

Jihadists groups fighting in Syria have claimed responsibility for previous car bombing attacks targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs, in retaliation for Hezbollah’s role in Syria.

Speaking to a local television, Ibrahim said security agencies had been on high alert since the early hours of the morning to prevent a “possible terrorist attack.”

“All security chiefs are targets and the war is between us and terrorism,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Berri’s Amal Movement canceled a planned conference over unspecified security threats. After the blast, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale called off his scheduled meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Gebran Bassil for similar reasons.

Friday’s bombing shattered a nearly three-month calm after a Lebanese Army-led security plan curbed a series of bombings that hit the country over the past year.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam called for an urgent security meeting Friday at the Grand Serail in light of the bombing and security fears.


*Daily Star