Six children wounded when old bomb explodes in Lebanon

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Six children were wounded in a blast in southern Lebanon on Friday in what witnesses said appeared to be an explosion caused by old cluster bomb munitions dropped by Israeli forces during the 2006 war.

The device exploded as the children were playing in the village of Zibqin, in a valley several kilometres from the frontier with Israel. Two of the children were seriously wounded and taken to hospital, the witnesses said.

Israel dropped a large number of cluster bombs towards the end of the 2006 war. The United Nations and Lebanese military have spent years clearing thousands of mines and bombs from the southern area.

(Reporting by Hussein Saad, Writing by Sylvia Westall; editing by Ralph Boulton)