Attacks raise tensions on Lebanon border

Bush to arrive in Jerusalem today

UN peacekeepers from Italy and France examined the remains of a rocket fired from Lebanon into the northern Israel town of Shlomit in one of two attacks reported yesterday. (EFI SHARIR/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIRUT - Fresh tensions arose yesterday along the volatile Israeli-Lebanese border as two attacks were launched hours ahead of a visit to the Middle East by President Bush.

In southern Lebanon, a roadside bomb struck a vehicle carrying United Nations troops assigned to keep the peace along the frontier with Israel, slightly wounding two soldiers.

Meanwhile, two rockets fired from Lebanese territory landed near a town in northern Israel, without causing deaths or injuries, Israeli police said.

Bush was scheduled to arrive in Jerusalem today to begin a trip that will also take him to several Arab nations.

The UN vehicle was hit yesterday afternoon as it traveled near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, said Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL. The two wounded soldiers were taken to a nearby hospital, he said. Their nationalities were not released.

"We cannot comment on who is behind the attack," Tenenti said. "We have opened an investigation to determine what exactly happened and why."

UNIFIL has maintained the fragile peace between Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah since the two went to war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

A bombing last year killed three Colombian and three Spanish peacekeepers, and an attack on July 16 targeted a UN post staffed by a Tanzanian contingent, but it caused no casualties.

Lebanon charged six Palestinians linked to Sunni fundamentalist groups in the second attack.

An investigation is still underway in the attack on the Spanish and Colombian battalion, UNIFIL officials said.

Al Qaeda has repeatedly called for waging "holy war" against United Nation peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, whom it labels "invading crusader forces."

An audiotape attributed to the head of an Islamist group linked to Al Qaeda threatened Monday to carry out attacks against forces in Lebanon in retaliation for the defeat of militants in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli last summer.

"The mill of war has started to grind . . . between the infidels and the believers," Shaker Abbsi, leader of Fatah al Islam, allegedly said in comments posted on a website frequently used by Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups.

Meanwhile, two rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel yesterday, Israeli police said.

In June, two rockets fired by a previously unknown fundamentalist group, the Jihadi Badr Brigades-Lebanon Branch, struck Israel but caused no deaths or injuries.

The Lebanese Army refused to comment on yesterday's reported rocket attack.

UNIFIL officials did not confirm or deny that an attack had taken place but said it had started an investigation.