Five killed in Lebanon explosion

At least five people were killed Thursday and 50 others injured in a car bomb explosion in east Lebanon's Hermel city, the Lebanese Red Cross announced.

A booby-trapped car exploded near an army barrack in Hermel in the Bekaa region, a Shiite agglomeration considered to be a heartland of Hezbollah, the country's military party, adjacent to the eastern Lebanese border with Syria.

The explosion targeted a public complex known as Serail, which houses many public administration buildings, bank branches and an army barrack, Xinhua reported.

Lebanese caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told LBCI TV that the bombing might have been caused by a suicide bomber as witnesses saw human remains in the mangled car, a black Kia 4x4 wheeler that had been stolen from the Antelias region east of Beirut.

A local security source, who declined to give his name because he was not authorised to speak to the press, told Xinhua that he didn't exclude the possibility that the attack was a suicide bombing.

The Lebanese army said in a statement that its units cordoned off the area and launched an investigation into the case, urging citizens "not to gather in the targeted area to avoid another bombing and facilitate the task of the military and the specialised agencies".

State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr ordered security forces to carry out the preliminary investigation and tasked Judge Kamal Nassar with inspecting the crime scene.

The explosion came after less than three weeks after a similar blast targeted former finance minister Mohammad Shatah, and two weeks after another car bomb was set off in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik.