Car bomb blast kills 3 in Lebanon’s Hermel

Three people, including a civilian, have been killed in a huge bomb explosion that hit a Lebanese military post in the northeastern town of Hermel.

The incident occurred on Saturday when a car bomb detonated at an army checkpoint at the main entrance of Hermel.

Sixteen people, among them five soldiers, were injured in the blast.

The al-Nusra Front in Lebanon – a militant Sunni group named after one of the al-Qaeda-linked groups fighting in Syria – claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The attack follows a car bomb explosion that hit an Iranian cultural center in southern Beirut on Wednesday, leaving up to eight people dead.

The al-Qaeda-linked group, Abdullah Azzam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The group also carried out a twin bombing attack on the Iranian Embassy in the Lebanese capital in November 2013, which killed over two dozen people, including Iran’s cultural attaché in Beirut, and left at least 150 others injured.

Hermel is located in the Bekaa Valley 10 kilometers from the Syrian border and is regarded a stronghold of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.

The town has been witnessing multiple attacks in recent months.

Foreign-backed militants fighting against the Syrian government have been attacking the town with mortar shells and bomb explosions.