TRIPOLI, Lebanon - A remote-control car bomb packed with ball bearings has ripped through a military bus in northern Lebanon, killing four soldiers and a civilian.
Authorities say 25 people were also injured in the blast in the port city of Tripoli, the second deadly attack targeting troops in northern Lebanon in less than two months.
A senior military official told The Associated Press that a car packed with explosives was parked on the side of a road and detonated by remote control.
The bomber set off the blast as the bus drove through the Bahsas neighbourhood on the southern entrance to the city.
Lebanese television reported that the car's owner showed up later at the blast site and was picked up by intelligence agents for questioning.
Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city, has a Sunni majority and the region is a known stronghold for Sunni militants.
Sectarian fighting involving pro-government Sunni fighters and gunmen of a pro-Syrian Alawite sect -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam -- killed and wounded dozens this summer in Tripoli before a truce.
On Aug. 13, 18 soldiers and civilians were killed by a roadside bomb near a bus carrying troops on a busy Tripoli street. It was Lebanon's deadliest bombing in more than three years.
Monday's explosion came two days after a massive bombing in Damascus, capital of neighbouring Syria, killed 17 people and wounded 14. Syria said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber from a Muslim extremist group and that the vehicle came from a neighbouring Arab country.
Syria's opponents in Lebanon blame the government in Damascus for bombings in Lebanon over the last three years, accusations Syria denies.
Sheik Daie al-Islam al-Shahal, founder of the fundamentalist Salafi Sunni movement in northern Lebanon, blamed Monday's attack on "external forces" and rejected suggestions Sunni militants were behind it.
"The false allegations and haste do not help stability and cause tensions," said al-Shahal, Lebanon's most powerful Salafist leader.
