Blast Targeting Lebanese Army Kills 5

Car Bombing Is Second Attack Against Military in Northern City in 6 Weeks

BEIRUT, Sept. 29 -- A car bomb exploded near a military bus in the northern city of Tripoli on Monday, killing five people, including four soldiers, and injuring more than 30.

The bombing revived worries about the presence of militant Islamist groups in the city, where government forces last year battled a group with alleged links to al-Qaeda.

Monday's attack, the second to target the army in Tripoli in less than six weeks, took place during the morning rush hour on a road leading to several schools. Security officials said the bomb was placed in a private Renault sedan and was detonated by remote control.

The attack occurred two days after a bombing in Damascus, the Syrian capital, but Lebanese leaders discounted the possibility of a connection.

"I don't think the two bombings are related -- those are speculations and personal opinions," Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said.

Syria's official news agency, Sana, reported Monday that officials had said that Saturday's attack in Damascus was carried out by a suicide bomber. The agency also said that a GMC Suburban used in the attack had crossed into Syria only a day earlier from a neighboring Arab country it did not name. At least 17 people were killed in the bombing.

Syria shares borders with three Arab countries -- Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan -- as well as with Turkey and Israel.

"North Lebanon has become a real base for radicalism that constitutes a threat for Syria," Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told a Lebanese publication Monday.

Saad Hariri, the head of the largest parliamentary group in Lebanon and a longtime opponent of Syria's influence here, said in a statement that Assad wanted to present Tripoli as a harbor for terrorists and a threat to Syria.

Syria deployed additional troops last week along part of its border with northern Lebanon, a step that its foreign minister, Walid Mouallem, said Saturday was coordinated with Lebanese authorities and designed to counter smuggling.

The bombing marked the first security breach in Tripoli since a memorandum of reconciliation signed between Sunnis and pro-Syrian Alawites who were involved in repetitive rounds of clashes in the neighborhoods of Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen. Militant Islamist groups fighting on both sides also took part in the clashes.

As in a similar bombing on Aug. 13 that left 14 dead, including nine soldiers, observers blamed Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist group that battled Lebanese forces for 15 weeks last year. The army eventually prevailed, but some members of the group were not apprehended.

The Tripoli memorandum opened the way to a series of reconciliation measures across the country, which had neared civil war in May. Late Friday, under the supervision of security forces, supporters of the country's main political groups started removing political slogans, posters and banners, wrapping them neatly and placing them in car trunks. Even so, army vehicles remain deployed in many of Beirut's neighborhoods.

Politicians said Monday's bombing was intended to undermine the reconciliation efforts.

"The terrorism that targeted military officers will not intimidate us and will encourage us to unite and to forge reconciliations," Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said.