Car bomb blast in Beirut kills 4

BEIRUT -- A car bomb ripped through a Shia neighborhood in southern Beirut yesterday, killing four people and sending plumes of smoke over the area in the latest attack targeting supporters of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group.

It was the second bombing in the neighborhood of Haret Hreik this month amid a series of attacks that have shaken Lebanon in a spillover of Syria's civil war.

The violence has targeted both Lebanon's Sunnis and Shia and has further stoked sectarian tensions that are already running high as each Lebanese community lines up with its brethren in Syria on opposing sides of the war.

The Lebanese Red Cross, in a statement to the state-run National News Agency, said that along with the four killed, 35 people were wounded.

A group known as Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for Hezbollah's military support of President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria.

While Lebanon's Shia have broadly supported Assad's rule, the country's Sunni community generally aids their brethren in Syria, and shadowy Sunni groups -- such as the Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon -- have sought to punish Lebanon's Shia.

On Thursday, a car bomb struck the northeastern Shia town of Hermel close to the Syrian border during rush hour, killing at least three people and wounding more than 20.