6 U.N. peacekeepers die in Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A car bomb killed six U.N. peacekeepers on patrol in southern Lebanon on Sunday in the first attack on the international force since it was expanded after last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas.

The attack took place on the same day the Lebanese military fought a bloody battle against Sunni Muslim radicals in the north in which 10 people died. It heightened fears that a second front may have opened in Lebanon's fight against militants linked to al-Qaida.

The Lebanese army is locked in a monthlong battle against a group of Sunni militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp north of Tripoli, where Sunday's gunbattle took place.

Among those condemning the attack on the peacekeepers was the Shiite Hezbollah, which called it a "suspicious act that harms the people of the south and of Lebanon."

The militant group has had good relations with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, since the troops were first deployed in 1978.

In Madrid, Spanish Defense Minister José Antonio Alonso said three Colombian and two Spanish peacekeepers were among the slain. Lebanese officials said the bomb was detonated from a distance and did not involve a suicide attacker.

The blast threw the troops' armored personnel carrier to the side of a main road between the towns of Marjayoun and Khiam, a few miles north of the Israeli town of Metulla.

Spain has 1,100 peacekeepers in Lebanon, part of the 13,000-member U.N. force from 30 countries. UNIFIL, along with 15,000 Lebanese troops, patrols a zone along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Its presence puts teeth in the U.N. cease-fire resolution that halted last summer's 34-day war. Southern Lebanon has been largely quiet after the summer conflict killed more than 1,200 people.

Western-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora denounced the attack, as did Israeli, U.S. and French officials.

Syria condemned the attack, its official news agency reported. Last month, the U.N. Security Council imposed an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri despite rejection from the Hezbollah-led opposition, which backs Damascus' role in Lebanon.

Complicating the picture, media reports this month said interrogations by Lebanese authorities with captured al-Qaida-inspired militants revealed plots to attack the U.N. force.

Information from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.