REPORT: Sources to LBCI: DNA tests do not match remains of Hermel's suicide bomber

Sources told LBCI on Saturday that DNA tests of Hussein Ghandour did not match with remains of Hermel's suicide bomber.

Ghandour was suspected of being the Hermel suicide bomber.

A car bomb exploded near a local government building in the Lebanese town of Hermel on Thursday January 16.

Security sources told LBCI that a suicide bomber had detonated the explosive laden vehicle, a black Kia SUV parked on the side of the road near a bank.

The sources said the vehicle used in Hermel car bomb attack is a Kia Sportage holding registration plate number 55597/B, which belongs to Nazareth Tohanian and was stolen from Antelias in November.

Meanwhile, Hermel’s Mayor Sobhi Saqr stated that the booby-trapped car arrived thirty minutes before the explosion and parked on the side of the road near Societe Generale bank, adding that the grenade found at the crime scene is not related to the explosion.

Later on, Lebanon-Based al-Nusra Front issued a statement in which it claimed responsibility for the suicide bomb attack that targeted Hermel, adding that the attack came in retaliation to “Hezbollah’s crimes against Syria’s Sunnite women and children.”

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

The explosion was the latest in a wave of attacks to hit Lebanon in recent months as the civil war in Syria increasingly spills over into its smaller neighbor.

The violence has targeted both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, further stoking sectarian tensions that are already running high as each community in Lebanon lines up behind its brethren in Syria on opposing sides of the war.


To watch Dalal Abou Haydar's report, please click on the VIDEO above