Agence France-Presse,
Six UN peacekeepers were killed by a car bomb in southern Lebanon on Sunday, the UN mission said, further rattling security as another 11 people died in fighting with Islamists in the north.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said six troops from a Spanish contingent were killed by the bomb, which a Lebanese security source said was detonated by remote control as their armoured vehicle passed by.
Initial reports said five soldiers serving in the Spanish army were killed and three others wounded after the blast.
But one of the three injured, a 19-year-old soldier from the southwestern Spanish city of Seville, died later in hospital, a Spanish defence ministry spokesman said in Madrid.
Spanish Defence Minister Jose Antonio Alonso earlier confirmed the other five dead, three Colombian nationals serving in the Spanish army and two Spanish citizens.
The blast was the first fatal attack on UN peacekeepers since UNIFIL's mandate was expanded last year in the wake of a devastating 34-day war between Israeli troops and the Hezbollah Shiite militia in southern Lebanon.
A Spanish colonel told AFP it was a “deliberate attack” in the Marjayoun-Khiam valley, an area frequently patrolled by the peacekeepers only some 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Israeli border.
“This attack was very well prepared in advance,” the Spanish officer said at the scene. “The bodies of two of the victims were blown several metres (yards) by the force of the blast.”
UNIFIL commander Major-General Claudio Graziano of Italy said the bombing was aimed at destabilising the region.
“It's not an attack against Lebanon and UNIFIL only but against the stability of the region. This attack has made UNIFIL more committed to fulfil its mission in southern Lebanon,” he said in a statement.
In Madrid, Alonso told a televised news conference that his country “supports and will continue to support the United Nations UNIFIL mission.”
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Lebanese judicial sources have told AFP that captured Islamist fighters from a group battling the army in the north of the country have threatened attacks on UN peacekeepers.
UNIFIL first deployed in Lebanon in 1978 after an Israeli invasion but was expanded from some 2,000 members after the July-August war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas who dominated the south of the country.
The attack came on top of a series of car bombings targeting anti-Syrian politicians in and around Beirut and as the army pursued its bloodiest internal fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war with Fatah al-Islam in the north.
Hezbollah was quick to condemn the bombing in an area considered its stronghold. “This act of aggression is aimed at increasing insecurity in Lebanon, especially in the south of the country,” it said in a statement.
Southern Lebanon is the heartland of Hezbollah whose disarmament UNIFIL is supposed to be monitoring in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the war with Israel on August 11, 2006.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her French counterpart Bernard Kouchner jointly condemned the bombing as Rice visited Paris for an international conference on Sudan's Darfur conflict.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the attack was part of a “campaign of destabilisation” against his country.
“This aggression can only reinforce our determination to strengthen the cooperation of the Lebanese army with UNIFIL,” he said.
Spain has deployed nearly 1,100 troops to southeastern Lebanon near the border with Israel as part of UNIFIL, which now has 13,225 soldiers from 30 countries.
In the north, 11 people died in clashes in the port city of Tripoli overnight Saturday, including six Sunni Islamists from Fatah al-Islam and a policeman's 10-year-old daughter, the army said.
Two civilians, one soldier and the police sergeant also died in a three-hour firefight which erupted as the army raided the apartment of a militant, an army spokesman said.
A military statement said 11 soldiers were also wounded, some seriously, in the first clashes in the mainly Sunni Muslim city since fighting erupted five weeks ago between Fatah al-Islam and the army at a nearby refugee camp.
Fighters loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas' mainstream Fatah faction said that they had killed three Islamists at the Nahr al-Bared camp, 15 kilometres (nine miles) farther north.
At least 161 people, including some 60 Islamists and 80 soldiers, are known to have have died in the violence but precise figures are unavailable.
About 2,000 residents of the camp's pre-battle population of 31,000 are still inside Nahr al-Bared.
In Paris, Rice earlier called on the international community to send a “very strong message” to Syria — blamed for supporting extremists in Lebanon — that continued interference would not be tolerated.
Syria denies any involvement in the unrest in its smaller neighbour.
