An explosion ripped through a military bus in the northern port city of Tripoli Monday, killing five Lebanese army soldiers and wounding at least 30 people.
Among the injured were 18 soldiers.

"Once again a treacherous hand has reached out to strike at the military establishment in a terrorist attack clearly aimed at undermining efforts at peace and stability," a Lebanese army communiqué said.

The bomb, placed under a parked Renault car at the southern entrance to the city, was packed with nuts and bolts and police suspect the device was detonated by remote control.

It blew up as the bus headed towards the capital Beirut at 7:45 am during the morning rush-hour. There were about 24 soldiers on board, most of them from the village of Akroum, located about 50 kilometers north of Tripoli near the Syrian border.

The owner of the booby-trapped vehicle was detained for questioning, a security official said.

Police and the army cordoned off the area as forensic experts began gathering evidence while residents rushed to the scene or to nearby hospitals to look for their loved ones.

Ali Al-Khatib said his 37-year-old cousin Anwar Jasim Al-Khatib, a father of two, was among the soldiers killed.

"He spent the weekend with his wife and children buying clothes for the Muslim Eid and was supposed to come back for the holiday tonight," Al-Khatib said, as he stood outside Tripoli's Nini hospital.

The force of the blast shattered windows and damaged cars nearby. The Renault vehicle under which the bomb was placed was left a burned-out pile of twisted metal.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A similar explosion in August left 14 people dead, nine of them soldiers, in the deadliest attack in Lebanon in three years.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Monday's blast was aimed at scuttling measures toward reconciliation.

He also denounced the fact that the blast took place as Muslims prepared to celebrate this week the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Several officials said they suspect the attack was aimed at undercutting the army's bid to secure Tripoli, which has been rocked by deadly sectarian violence in recent months.

Tensions had eased in the past few weeks after Lebanon's rival factions signed a reconciliation accord aimed at putting the lid on a political crisis that took the country to the brink of a new civil war earlier this year.

"This attack targets the army's morale and seeks to rattle relations between the military and the residents of Tripoli... following the expanded deployment of troops," Tripoli MP Mustapha Alloush told AFP.

The army last year fought a 15-week battle with the al-Qaida inspired Fatah al-Islam militia in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli that left 400 people dead, including 168 soldiers.

The head of Fatah al-Islam, Shaker al-Abssi, earlier this year vowed revenge attacks against the army.

In June and July, 23 people were killed in battles between Sunni Muslim supporters of the government and their Damascus-backed rivals from the Alawite community in Tripoli.

Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and straddle the border into Syria whose President Bashar al-Assad is a follower of the faith.

Monday's attack took place amid heightened tensions in the region following a weekend bombing which left 17 people dead and 14 hurt in Damascus, Lebanon's former powerbroker.(Naharnet-AFP)