More Muslim Terror

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — A bomb ripped through a bus during Wednesday morning rush hour in a northern Lebanese city, killing 18 soldiers and civilians, security officials said, raising fears that an al-Qaeda-inspired militant group is stepping up revenge attacks against the military. The bombing was Lebanon's deadliest in more than three years, hitting a main Tripoli street crowded with people heading to work. The bus was left riddled with shrapnel, its windows blown out, as soldiers and bystanders carried away the dozens of bleeding wounded in the glass-strewn street. It was the first significant bombing in Lebanon in months and comes as the country is making moves to put three years of back-to-back crises behind it. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman was heading to Syria later Wednesday in the first visit there by a Lebanese president since 2005, aimed at patching up troubled ties between the neighboring countries. A day earlier, parliament approved a long-awaited national unity government between the Western-backed factions of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah.