Lebanese police find small amount of abandoned explosives on Beirut street, 2nd this week
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Police found abandoned explosives and detonators on a Beirut street Thursday, the second such discovery this week, sowing fear in a public still recovering from the recent bombings of two commuter buses and street clashes.
The explosives — 19 sticks of TNT, weighing a total of about eight kilograms (about 18 pounds) — were contained in a wooden box abandoned next to a streetside garbage container in Ashrafieh, the Christian sector of the Lebanese capital, police said.
Police were called in and traffic was blocked as sappers examined the box.
A search of the area uncovered another box about 100 meters (yards) away containing 13 detonators, police added.
It was the second time explosives were found in the city since Monday, when a two kilogram- (4.4 pound-) bomb was found concealed inside a used car tire in south Beirut, a stronghold of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group.
The finds stoked fears gripping residents of the Lebanese capital and its vicinity after bombings earlier this month and street clashes in January amid the months' long political standoff between the government and opposition.
On Feb. 13, two bombs exploded minutes apart exploded on a busy commuter mountain road in the Christian heartland northeast of Beirut, killing three passengers and injuring 20 others.
Beirut has been hit by a series of mysterious bombs in the last two years. The biggest was a suicide truck bombing that killed former premier Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
Besides, an opposition campaign since December to oust the government turned violent in January, with street clashes and rioting. Eight people were killed.
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Map showing Beirut.
In Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, the Internal Security Forces (ISF) found bomb-making equipment in three separate caches on Thursday, two days after a bomb was discovered in Beirut. This had stroke fears among many Lebanese who were still dramatized by recent bus bombings and street clashes. A wooden box, armed with nineteen TNT sticks, was found in Beirut's Christian neighborhood, Achrafieh, by a scrap collector. The box was found in a dumpster on Hikmeh Avenue leading to Corniche al-Nahr, facing the Murr Television Station and the Mont Liban Radio building.

The box of TNT sticks was found approximately at 8:30 a.m. The police immediately rushed to the scene and cut off the city from the public to disarm the bomb.

Half an hour later, employees of Lebanon's privatized waste management company, Sukleen, found an aluminum box packed with thirteen detonators. The box was found about 200 meters away from the wooden one.

By the end of the day, bombs were found on the road leading to the Kesrouan village of Ghbaleh, the National News Agency (NNA) reported. However, NNA stated that the bombs were not meant to explode. ISF's investigation was immediately conducted.