Beirut - The Lebanese army has confiscated a small boat full of weapons and explosives near the southern port of Tripoli, an army statement said on Sunday.

According to the army the boat left the nearby Naher al Bard, a Palestinian refugee camp, overnight on Saturday. The crew managed to escape when they were spotted by the Lebanese army but their weapons were left on the boat.

“There were explosives, detonators and rockets on board the small boat,” an army source told DPA.

Lebanon has been targeted by fifteen explosions in 2005 which were mainly aimed at anti-Syrian opposition leaders. On February 14, 2005, five-time Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed along with 20 other people by a massive car explosion.

Lebanese security sources said information had reached army command earlier that the two camps of Naher al Bard and Bedawi near Tripoli had become “a hotbed for smuggling weapons into Lebanon.”

“A lot of Palestinian factions inside the Naher al Bard and Bedawi refugee camps are loyal to Syria,” the sources added.

Syrian-Lebanese ties have been tense since the assassination of Hariri. Anti-Syrian opposition leaders have accused Damascus of being behind Hariri’s murder and a number of other explosions that took place in the country last year, a charge Syria has strongly denied.  (DPA)