Beach Bomb

Remember my lame trip to south Lebanon yesterday, how after driving for hours I didn't have a single decent interview and ended up throwing in the towel and going for a swim in the Mediterranean? Well, it turns out I was closer to a story than I thought.

A one kilogram bomb was discovered today in the sand on the very beach in Tyre where I was flopping around in a cheap bathing suit. It's not clear what or who the target was meant to be. The beach is used by soldiers from the UN forces who patrol southern Lebanon. But the device was timed to explode in the morning, and even the UN has to work during the day.

It's more likely that someone meant to kill average families. When we heard the news, my driver Khalid said that he had just told his kids that it was the best beach in Lebanon and had promised to take them there. In the bizarre, lightening-never strikes-twice logic of a country in the grip of a terror campaign, it may now also be the safest.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut