Hezbollah stronghold attacked from Syria

The agency reported no casualties,but said the rockets fell overnight on Baalbek,a Hezbollah town dominated mostly by Shias with a sizable Sunni population and a smaller Christian one. The rockets set fields and bushes afire but avoided the city centre.

The attacks came almost a week after Hassan Nasrallah,the leader of Hezbollah,announced his military support for the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Syrian opposition groups,which aim to overthrow Assad,condemned Nasrallahs stand and called for his fighters to withdraw from Syrian soil. Some rebel brigade leaders threatened to retaliate against Hezbollah directly.

Indiscriminate shelling has hit the smaller Shia village of Hermel,in northeastern Lebanon,in recent weeks,killing several civilians. But Friday nights rockets could be the most provocative yet,hitting a major population centre in the northeastern Bekaa Valley. Baalbek is apparently the furthest south in the Bekaa that shells from Syria targeting Hezbollah areas have reached.

Baalbek is home to one of Lebanons most important archaeological sites and tourist destinations,the Baalbek ruins,which include a pre-Hellenic temple and later Roman structures.