The bomb exploded in a commercial area of the Sabil district of Arsal.
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Lebanon’s military court commissioner has ordered the security forces to launch an investigation into the explosion, National Media Agency delegate Huda Meniim said.
Security sources said the blast was likely to have targeted an independent religious society made up of Syrian scholars. He said the head of the local clerics’ committee, Sheikh Othman Mansur, was among the wounded. As they withdrew from Arsal, the jihadists took dozens of Lebanese police and soldiers hostage and still hold them in the hilly terrain on the town’s outskirts.
Still, Lebanon, which has seen plenty of violence in recent decades, has been feeling the impact of the bloody civil war in neighboring Syria. Most of it was captured over the past year by Syrian troops and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.
Extremist groups including Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front have a presence in western Syria, including near the border with Lebanon, and there are have been several incursions by militants reported in the region.
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The two Sunni Islamist groups have a limited presence in western Syria near the Lebanese border.
