World IN BRIEF : LEBANON : Suicide Bomber Kills an Israeli Soldier

An Islamic militant leaped out of some bushes and blew himself up in front of an Israeli army convoy in southern Lebanon, killing one soldier and wounding an Israeli civilian. The attack was by the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah. Israeli troops in southern Lebanon came under mortar fire about the same time, the Israeli army said. Israeli gunners opened up with howitzers and mortars against a cluster of Shiite Muslim villages just north of the enclave Israel holds in southern Lebanon, Lebanese security sources said. A militiaman of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army was killed 90 minutes after the suicide attack when guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb.