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Policemen and security officials secure the area as smoke rises from Duroy hotel in Raouche, in western Beirut, on Wednesday.

BEIRUT: A suicide bomber killed himself and wounded at least four security officers at a hotel in Beirut close to the Saudi Embassy on Wednesday, Lebanese security sources said. The third blast in Lebanon in less than a week.

The bomber blew himself up when he was approached by security officers near the Duroy hotel, some 20 meters from the embassy in the seaside district of Raouche, the sources said. The embassy was not damaged by the blast.

Television footage showed scores of army officers packing a main street filled with emergency vehicles.
Security services arrested a second suspected militant and are pursuing a third whose nationality was not immediately known, the sources added.

Lebanon has suffered a wave of sectarian violence linked to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

On Monday night, a suicide bomber blew up his car near an army checkpoint in the city, killing himself and a security officer. Three days earlier, the head of Lebanon’s General Security service narrowly escaped a suicide bombing near the Syrian border.

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