Bomb kills at least 16 in Lebanon - FIRST VERSION

• Last Updated: August 13. 2008 2:49PM UAE / August 13. 2008 10:49AM GMT

Lebanese soldiers gather next of a bus which was destroyed by a bomb planted on the side of a road filled with people heading to work, in the northern city of Tripoli.

TRIPOLI // A bomb targeted a bus in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli today, killing at least 16 people, including seven soldiers when it exploded in a busy square, security sources said.

At least 30 people were wounded, two of them seriously, by the bomb, which was planted either inside the bus or beside it and exploded in a busy district of Lebanon's second largest city.

The Red Cross ferried casualties from the site of the blast.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in the region which has seen both sectarian fighting and clashes between the army and Islamist militants.

At least 22 people have been killed in Tripoli in recent months in fighting between Sunni and Alawite gunmen in violence linked to lingering political tensions in Lebanon.

A new national unity government, formed as part of a deal aimed at defusing the country's crisis, won a vote of confidence in parliament on Tuesday.

The Lebanese president Michel Suleiman is scheduled to visit Damascus later today to meet the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad

* Reuters