At least five soldiers, including a senior officer, have been killed in a bomb blast near the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Brigadier General Francois El Hajj, head of military operations in the Lebanese army command, was among the dead.

The blast rocked the Christian town of Baabda which is the site of Lebanon's presidential palace and on the eastern outskirts of Beirut.

It is unclear who carried out the attack. Witnesses said several cars were ablaze and dozens of people were wounded.

Earlier this week Lebanon's parliament speaker postponed a presidential election to December 17, the eighth delay of a ballot repeatedly put off over differences between the anti-Syrian governing coalition and the opposition backed by Damascus.

The feuding camps agreed last week on General Michel Suleiman, a Maronite Christian, as a consensus candidate for the post, which has been vacant since November 24 when the term of Emile Lahoud ended.

Electing Mr Suleiman would ease Lebanon's worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

His nomination followed intense French-led mediation to resolve the crisis.

Arab and Western states have expressed concern that a prolonged vacuum in the presidency could further destabilise Lebanon, which has seen some sporadic deadly sectarian clashes earlier this year.

Lebanon has also seen several assassinations of anti-Syrian figures since the killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in February 2005.

Most recently Christian member of parliament Antoine Ghanem was killed in a car bomb attack in September.

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