Almost simultaneously on the night of Dec. 15, two army checkpoints along Lebanon’s southern coast became the target of attacks carried out by a group of Lebanese and Palestinian militants affiliated with extremist Islamist organizations. Less than 48 hours later, a car rigged with nearly 80 kilograms of explosives detonated near a Hezbollah base in the town of Sbouba, near the city of Maqna, in the northern Bekaa Valley. Security investigations of these incidents are still under way.
Preliminary investigations of the two attacks on the checkpoints suggest they are the work of the faction that carried out the Nov. 19 attack against the Iranian Embassy in Beirut using two suicide bombers, one of whom drove a booby-trapped car and one who walked toward his intended target and blew himself up with an explosive belt.
