BEIRUT (AP) ? A large explosion rocked a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group south of the Lebanese capital Tuesday, setting several cars on fire and causing an unknown number of casualties, security officials said.
The powerful blast came as many among Lebanon Shiites began observing the holy month of Ramadan, and is the worst explosion to hit the area in years ? direct fallout of the civil war raging in neighboring Syria.
With skirmishes between Shiites and Sunnis on the rise around the country, religiously mixed and highly fragile Lebanon is increasingly buffeted by powerful forces that are dividing the Arab world along sectarian lines. Some Syrian rebel groups, which are predominantly Sunni, have threatened to strike in Lebanon after Hezbollah joined Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops in their battle against opposition fighters.
Tuesday's explosion struck the suburb of Beir el-Abed, but it was unclear whether it was caused by a car bomb, officials said. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the blast was near a gas station.
Ambulances and fire engines, their sirens wailing, raced to the area and witnesses said casualties were rushed to the nearby Bahman and Rasoul al-Atham hospitals. People were seen running in the street away from the site of the explosion which set several cars on fire.
The power of the blast shattered windows and damaged several buildings in the busy residential and commercial area.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the blast was a car bomb inside a parking lot near an Islamic center. The station broadcast footage of a thick plume of smoke rising into the sky at the site of the blast as people rushed to take casualties to the hospital.
In May, two rockets slammed into a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut, wounding four people. The rockets struck hours after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah vowed in a speech to help propel Assad to victory in Syria's civil war.
In June, a rocket slammed into the same area, causing no casualties.
Hezbollah has openly joined the fight in Syria, and the group's fighters were instrumental in a recent regime victory when government forces regained control of the strategic town of Qusair near the Lebanese border.
Lebanon's Sunni Muslims mostly back the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels in Syria, while many Shiites support Assad, who is a member of Syria's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
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