Three killed by car bomb in Lebanon

BEIRUT: A car bomb exploded near a local government building in the Lebanese town of Hermel on Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding several more, local media and residents said.

Hermel is in Lebanon´s Bekaa Valley near its northern border with Syria and is known as a stronghold of Hezbollah.

Local channels, including Hezbollah´s Al Manar, broadcast images of a large plume of smoke pouring up from a square and the twisted wreckage of a car.

Lebanon´s national news agency and residents in the area said three people were killed. The news agency said 15 more were wounded.

Lebanon, a small Mediterranean country, has been increasingly affected by the civil war in neighbouring Syria. (Reuters)