Bomb Attack on U.S. Embassy in Beirut Foiled

BEIRUT — Lebanese authorities said they halted a bomb attack Wednesday against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, arresting two men outside the compound, one of whom was carrying more than 2 pounds of explosives.

A Lebanese man in his 30s, identified as Abed Mreish, was trying to enter the embassy when he was stopped at an army checkpoint about 500 yards from the complex, a senior Lebanese security official said.

A Palestinian taxi driver was arrested as a possible accomplice.

“The device did not explode, nor was anyone harmed,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

The interception came less than a week after the State Department urged Americans in Lebanon to keep a low profile, vary times and routes of travel and avoid Palestinian refugee camps because of growing tensions and anti-American rhetoric in the Middle East.

Security has been very tight at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut since the 1980s, when suicide bombers carried out two attacks on embassy buildings. On May 30, the United States reopened its consulate in Beirut, nearly 20 years after closing it during the country’s 1975-90 civil war.

A Lebanese official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, refused to speculate on Mreish’s motives, saying army officers were interrogating him.