Explosive Device Defused near Army Post in Tripoli
An improvised explosive device was dismantled Sunday near an army post on al-Mitain Street in the northern city of Tripoli.
“Lebanese Army units managed to defuse a hand-made and armed explosive device that was placed near the municipal stadium and a Lebanese Army post in Tripoli's al-Mitain Street,” state-run National News Agency reported.
The device contained “around 15 kilograms of explosive material that were put inside an oxygen canister and connected to a timer, a battery and electric wires,” NNA said.
The army cordoned off the area after the bomb was discovered, the agency noted.
"The explosive device was timed to explode at 5:00 pm (1400 GMT)," a security source told Agence France Presse.
Later on Sunday, the Internal Security Forces issued a statement clarifying how the bomb was discovered.
“At 3:00 p.m., the Tripoli Brigade operations room received a phone call on the emergency number 112 from a citizen who said he grew suspicious after seeing a young man arriving on a motorbike and putting a box on the side of the road in Tripoli's al-Mitain Street before fleeing to an unknown destination,” the statement said.
“The operations room immediately dispatched two patrols to the area and the box turned out to contain a 15-kilogram oxygen canister containing nails and connected to a motorcycle battery,” it added.
The ISF said the explosive device was set up for remote detonation and that it was dismantled by an army bomb technician.
For its part, the army confirmed in a statement that the bomb was placed by two men riding a motorcycle, who “threw the box at the municipal stadium-Mitain Street intersection.”
It said a search operation was underway to arrest the perpetrators and refer them to the relevant judicial authorities.
The development comes amid preparations by the army and security forces to implement a security plan in the restive city and a day after three soldiers were killed and four others wounded in a suicide attack on an army checkpoint in the outskirts of the Bekaa town of Arsal.
Last week, unknown gunmen in Tripoli assassinated an army warrant officer and an Internal Security Forces member in two separate incidents.
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