Originally published March 17, 2014
A suicide car bomb killed four people in a Lebanese Hezbollah stronghold in the Bekaa Valley late on Sunday (March 16), according to a Reuters report.
The blast was carried out by a suicide attacker who drove an explosives-laden car into the town of Al-Nabi Othman.
The driver rammed the car into a petrol station, according to a report by Al Jazeera. Members of the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, realizing an attack was underway, attempted to stop the vehicle, but the suspect managed to detonate the device.
Reuters identified two of the deceased as members of Hezbollah, one of whom was local leader Abdul Rahman al-Qadhi. Another man and his wife in the area at the time of the attack were among the victims.
The jihadist Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The little-known Liwa Ahrar al-Sunna in Baalbek, a Sunni Muslim armed group opposed to Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian conflict, also claimed responsibility for the attack, according to AFP.
The attack came hours after the Syrian army, backed by Hezbollah fighters, captured Yabrud, a former rebel bastion in Syria near the Lebanese border.
Hezbollah-dominated areas in Lebanon have in the last year been the target of repeated attacks due to its involvement in Syria's civil war, according to Reuters.
