A bomb placed in a tractor failed to explode Tuesday, in the third such booby-trapped attempt in about two weeks in the former Israeli-occupied border zone of southern Lebanon, police said, quoted by AFP.
The explosive charge apparently failed to blow up and merely provoked fire in the tractor owned by contractor Saadallah Daher at his cement factory on the main road of the town of Marjayoun, they said.
The driver of the tractor escaped unharmed but the vehicle was damaged, they said.
A bomb's detonator can cause fire even if the bomb itself fails to explode, usually because it is either poorly set or because it has expired.
Police said the bomb carried Hebrew inscriptions.
A booby-trapped car had exploded overnight Monday in the village of Hula in the central sector of the former occupied zone and close to the borders with Israel, inflicting no casualties.
On March 26, an explosive charge placed in a pick-up truck in Hula blew up, again without inflicting casualties.
A letter was then found at the site, threatening the owner of the vehicle "and all other collaborators (with Israel) and traitors to leave the village immediately or else face a tough response."
In a related development, a diplomatic report from New York, cited by the Lebanese Daily Star, showed that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was satisfied with the relative quiet prevailing on the border between Lebanon and Israel.
However, the paper quoted a diplomatic source as refusing to describe this status quo as a cease-fire but as self-discipline exercised by both the Lebanese and Israeli sides.
“This cease-fire could fall at any moment,” the source said. “The present stability is due to the fact that Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon is busy with his country’s military confrontation with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.”
At the end of April, Annan is due to issue a report containing new ideas regarding the composition of UNIFIL, whose present mandate expires July 31, the same diplomatic report said.
“So far, there are no indications as to which way Annan’s new ideas will go regarding the mandate renewal. But some indications are due to materialize after the Easter holidays,” the report said – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
