Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — Lebanon has been bracing for a suicide bombing campaign.

Security sources said Lebanon’s military and police were on alert for daily suicide strikes similar to those in Iraq and Syria.

They said the attacks would pit Al Qaida-aligned militias against the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah in what could include the assassination of Lebanese politicians.

“Security forces are taking measures in coordination with several personalities, who are threatened to be assassinated in Lebanon, including caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati,” Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said.

Lebanon has come under nearly daily car bombings, many of them directed against Hizbullah. On Feb. 1, at least four people were killed in a car bomb near a Hizbullah stronghold in the northeastern town of Hermel.

Al Qaida’s Nusra Front for the Defense of the Levant, a leading rebel militia in Syria, claimed responsibility, the third by the group for such an operation in Lebanon. At the same time, the Syrian military has increased air and artillery strikes on Lebanon.

The sources said the Hermel bombing sparked an alert that another car
bomb was headed for Beirut from the Hizbullah-dominated Bekaa Valley. They
said the Lebanese Army was stopping cars on most roads to the capital.

“The strict security measures at the army’s checkpoints were taken in
light of the security situation in the country,” another source told the
official Voice of Lebanon radio.

The sources said the suicide bombings could also target Western and Arab
embassies believed linked to Sunni militias in Lebanon. They said most
embassies have reduced their staff amid the attacks around Beirut.

“This requires the greatest level of vigilance and security forces must
remain alert in order to confront the dangers that are no longer limited to
a certain region, but they have become spread out in the country,” the
Lebanese daily A-Safir, quoting security sources, said on Feb. 2.

On Feb. 1, the U.S. embassy warned Americans to leave Lebanon. The
embassy said “unofficial travel” by U.S. government employees and their
families would require State Department approval.

“The potential for death or injury in Lebanon exists in particular due
to the increasing frequency of terrorist bombing attacks throughout the
country,” the U.S. embassy said. “Although there is no evidence these
attacks were directed specifically at U.S. citizens at this time, there is a
real possibility of ‘wrong place, wrong time’ harm to U.S. citizens.”

  Bekaa Valley, Hermel, Lebanon bracing for Al Qaida suicide attacks like those in Iraq, Marwan Charbel, Najib Miqati, Syria