ALEY, Lebanon, May 23, 2007 (AFP) - Sixteen people were wounded when a bomb exploded in a popular Lebanese mountain resort, the third such bombing in the country in a week, according to the latest toll issued by police on Thursday.

The blast rocked the predominantly Druze town of Aley which is popular as a summer resort for Arab tourists and is the stronghold of Druze leader MP Walid Jumblatt, a key figure in the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority in Lebanon.

Two of the 16 wounded, a Syrian and a Lebanese, were in serious condition, a police officer told AFP.

"The explosive charge was placed in a small suitcase near the entrance of a residential building," a security official said.

The blast damaged several buildings and shops along the street, which was immediately cordoned off by police, according to an AFP correspondent on the scene.

Relief workers and police climbed over rubble where a wall was blown down by the explosion to search for people who may have been trapped, he said.

Wednesday night's was the third blast to hit Beirut and its environs since fighting broke out on Sunday between Lebanese troops and militants of the Fatah al-Islam Islamist group at a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

The first struck Beirut's Christian district of Ashrafiyeh on Sunday night, killing one woman. The second was in Verdun, a predominately Sunni Muslim quarter of the capital, and wounded 10 people.

Fatah al-Islam initially claimed those two bombings, but later denied them.

Jumblatt pointed the finger at Syria, which he said was trying to block a UN resolution due to set up a tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 killing of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, which was widely blamed on Damascus.

"These bombs are planted because the Security Council is about to intervene and adopt the tribunal," he told CNN.

"This is why the Syrian regime is trying to terrorise us and say 'if you adopt the resolution, this is an example of what will happen in Lebanon'."

Telecommunications minister Marwan Hamadeh, who was badly injured in an October 2004 Beirut bombing in a series of attacks against anti-Syrian Lebanese figures, was also quick to accuse Damascus.

"After the failure of the discord which they (Syrians) wanted to stir through Nahr Al-Bared, the explosions have resumed," he told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television station.

"This is an attempt to sow discord, to terrorise the Lebanese in order to ruin the coming tourism season," Hamadeh said.

Syria denies any involvement in the clashes in northern Lebanon which it said was a bid to prod the UN Security Council into setting up the international tribunal to try suspects in Hariri's murder.

Lebanon has been paralysed by feuding between opponents of Damascus and pro-Syrian factions -- including the Shiite militant group Hezbollah -- largely over the creation of the court.

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