5 Soldiers Hurt as Suicide Bomber Rams Israeli Convoy in Lebanon

A suicide bomber attacked an Israeli convoy in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, wounding six people--including five Israeli soldiers--in what the pro-Iranian Hezbollah called a “down payment” for Israel’s abduction of a Shiite Muslim clergyman.

Hezbollah (Party of God) said a Shiite clergyman drove the explosives-laden truck. He and a passenger blew themselves up in the attack, Israeli military sources said.

Hezbollah also said the seizure of Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid hampered efforts to free the 14 Western captives in Lebanon, eight of whom are Americans. Hezbollah is thought to be an umbrella organization for groups holding the hostages.

Hezbollah said the suicide bomber was Sheik Assad Birro, a 24-year-old Lebanese Shiite clergyman from the Bekaa Valley. Israel said two people were in the pickup, which exploded at midmorning in the buffer zone the Israelis control just north of the border.

Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual adviser of Hezbollah, said of the bombing: “We tell Israel this is a down payment. Much more will follow.”

Sheik Sobhi Tofaili, another Hezbollah leader, said there will be more attacks and that the sheik’s seizure will “mushroom into an explosive volcano.”

Uri Lubrani, Israel’s coordinator for southern Lebanon, said on Middle East Television that the Israelis will retaliate for the suicide bombing, in which five Israeli soldiers and a member of the allied South Lebanon Army militia were hurt.

Israeli commandos abducted Obeid, 33, from southern Lebanon on July 28. Israel has offered to trade him and several hundred Shiite prisoners for three Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon and the Western hostages.

The offer has been rejected, and Hezbollah said that “efforts for the release of the hostages are passing through their greatest setback because of the foolhardiness committed by the racist Zionists.”

Meanwhile, in Israel’s occupied areas, troops shot and killed a man and a child in a Palestinian refugee camp during demonstrations marking 20 months of the Arab intifada, hospital officials said.

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since the uprising began in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in December, 1987. Thirty-five Israelis have died.