Bomb wounds 2 UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

A roadside bomb exploded Tuesday near a United Nations vehicle traveling along a coastal highway south of Beirut, lightly wounding two peacekeepers, UN and Lebanese officials said. 

Tuesday's explosion rocked the town of Rmeileh, near the southern coastal city of Sidon. Smoke was seen billowing from the scene, witnesses said.

Milos Strugar, adviser to the force commander of the UN

Interim Force in Lebanon, said one UNIFIL vehicle was

damaged in the explosion and two peacekeepers in the

vehicle were "lightly wounded" and taken to a hospital.

Two Lebanese security officials also described the attack, both on condition of anonymity in line with Lebanese military regulations.

Strugar would not confirm the nationalities of those hurt,

but he said they were not members of the Spanish contingent, as earlier reported by Lebanese officials.

Yasmina Bouziane, a UNIFIL spokeswoman, would not disclose the victims' nationalities.

In Madrid, the Spanish Defense Ministry confirmed the casualties were not Spanish. Lebanese TV stations said the wounded peacekeepers were Irish.

Lebanese troops sealed off the area as investigators wearing plastic gloves picked up pieces of debris and searched for parts of the bomb.

More than an hour after the explosion, security officers were seen leading away two men in handcuffs. It was not immediately clear whether they were suspected of triggering the explosion by remote control or whether they were passers-by.

Tuesday's attack was the third on the 13,500-strong force known as UNIFIL since it was expanded after the 34-day Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hizbullah guerrillas in summer of 2006.

Three Spanish and three Colombian UN soldiers were killed when a bomb destroyed their armoured troop carrier in south Lebanon in the first attack, on June 24 last year.

In July, a roadside bomb exploded near a UNIFIL position, causing no casualties.

Reuters contributed to this report