2 Suicide Car Bombs Kill 19 in S. Lebanon

At least 19 people were killed and eight wounded Tuesday in two suicide car-bomb attacks in what Israel has defined as its “security zone” in southern Lebanon, Israeli and independent sources reported.

The incidents, which appeared to be coordinated, were by far the most serious in the region since at least early this year, and they followed a three-month period in which there were no suicide attacks against Israeli forces or their allies.

In addition to the two suicide bombers, the casualties included 15 Lebanese civilians and two soldiers of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army, the militia charged with patrolling a strip of Lebanese territory between six and 10 miles deep just north of the Israeli border.

5 Militiamen, 2 Israelis

The injured included five more militiamen and two Israeli military advisers attached to the militia.

Pre-recorded videotapes of two people claiming to be the suicide bombers appeared later on Beirut television. They showed a woman, Eptisam Harb, 28, and 20-year-old Khaled Azrak, who said they were members of Lebanon’s non-sectarian Syrian National Socialist Party.

“I go towards martyrdom . . . to restore honor and glory to my nation,” the woman said. The man, who said he was from Syria, declared: “I believe in Lebanon and Islam and the liberation of this land, for Lebanon is my land as well as Damascus and Palestine.”

Western security sources in southern Lebanon speculated that the attacks were part of a continuing battle for control of the region in the wake of the withdrawal by Israel of most of its troops to the international border.

Attack at Checkpoint

Tuesday’s bloodiest attack occurred at a South Lebanon Army checkpoint near Hasbayya, in the eastern sector of the security zone. A man drove up to the checkpoint in a Volkswagen, parked it and began to walk away, according to a senior Israeli defense source. When he was called back, he got into the vehicle and detonated the explosives. Fifteen Lebanese villagers and two militiamen were killed in the thunderous blast, and at least three more militia troops were wounded.

Just 13 minutes later, a woman drove a Peugeot 504 sedan up to a checkpoint at the western end of the security zone and exploded it. The blast killed the driver and wounded at least five people, including two South Lebanon Army troopers, two Israeli advisers and a 14-year-old boy.