Lebanon Rush-hour Bombing Kills 18

Lebanon's fragile status quo suffered a new blow today when a bomb killed 18 people in the northern port city of Tripoli, the scene of recent sectarian clashes.

The blast came just before President Michel Suleiman left for a landmark visit to Syria ? a sign of the improving relations between the two neighbours and a day after Beirut's new national unity government won a parliamentary vote of confidence after weeks of stormy debates.

Ten of the dead were soldiers and 30 other people were wounded in the remote-controlled explosion at a bus stop during morning rush hour in a busy shopping street. A baby and an eight-year-old shoeshine boy were also among the dead.

No claim of responsibility was made, but suspicion quickly fell on Fatah al-Islam, an extremist Sunni group with links to al-Qaida that fought the Lebanese army for three months last year and has vowed revenge against its then commander ? now the president.

Suleiman condemned what he called a "terrorist crime" before leaving for Damascus, where his talks with President Bashar al-Assad were billed as the start of a new era following the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005 after nearly three decades of military domination of its "sister" nation. That was triggered by outrage over the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, in a Beirut bomb blast in which Syria has consistently denied charges of involvement.

Today's attack in Tripoli was a bloody beginning for the new 30-member cabinet, led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, formed last month, with the participation of the Iranian-backed Shia group Hizbullah, after a long crisis that descended into violence that killed 65 people in May.

Tripoli, Lebanon's second city, has been rocked by clashes between Siniora's anti-Syrian supporters and rivals loyal to Damascus, with an alarmingly sectarian cast to fighting between Sunnis and Alawite gunmen in which 23 people were killed last month. The nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared saw nearly four months of heavy fighting last year between Fatah and the Lebanese army, one of the few truly "national" institutions in a still bitterly divided country.

Nabih Berri, the Lebanese parliament speaker, said the timing of the Tripoli bombing reflected efforts "to prevent the improvement of Lebanese-Syrian relations." The Arab League secretary-general, Amr Mussa, said it was "aimed at complicating the security and political situation in Lebanon and hampering the launch of the new government."