Suicide bombers in northeast Lebanon kill 5

(27 Jun 2016) A group of suicide bombers detonated their explosive belts in a northeastern Lebanese village near the border with Syria on Monday, killing five people and wounding at least 15, a Lebanese military official and paramedics said. The blasts occurred in the predominantly Christian village of Al-Qaa, only few hundred metres (yards) away from the border. The state-run National News Agency said four suicide bombers were involved in the rare multiple attack. No group immediately claimed responsibility. The villagers became suspicious of the men as they were passing through the village around 4am local time (0100 GMT), an eyewitness in Al-Qaa said. When civilian security men who guard the village called out to them, they threw a hand grenade before successively blowing themselves up among civilians. A local Christian priest Father Elian Nasrallah said that residents had not been aware there were multiple attackers after the first large blast, leading to further casualties. Al-Qaa and the nearby Ras Baalbek are the only two villages with a Christian majority in the predominantly Shiite northeastern Hermel region, that borderwhere the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group holds sway. The area along the Syria border has been struck by bombings claimed by Sunni extremists on several occasion since Syria's conflict began in March 2011, leading Christians of Qaa to set up self-defense units to protect against potential attack by Muslim extremists from neighboring Syria. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...