Blast rocks Beirut hours after Rice's surprise visit

Three people were wounded in the explosion near the Rue Monot, a street popular with weekend revellers, the director general of internal security, General Ashraf Rifi, told the privately run Future TV.

Two vehicles were torched in the blast caused by a bomb placed under a car parked on a sidestreet, close to the privately run Saint Joseph University on the edge of Christian east Beirut, Rifi said.

The rival LBC television said six people had been wounded, mainly by flying glass.

It was not immediately clear if the motive of the bombing was political or a personal settling of accounts, although it came just hours after Rice flew out to Israel after her lightning visit.

LBC said the bombed vehicle belonged to local resident Joseph Nadim.

Lebanon has been rocked by no fewer than eight previous bombings already this year, most notoriously a February blast that killed billionaire five-time premier Rafiq Hariri and is currently being investigated by a UN team.

Rice had visited Beirut to pledge her support for the new government of prime minister-designate Fuad Siniora, the first formed since Syria ended its three-decade troop deployment under US-led pressure.

Addressing a joint news conference with Siniora, Rice promised strong US cooperation with his government, although she insisted there would be no change in policy towards Shia militant group Hezbollah following its inclusion in the cabinet.

"I believe that we can support, both through international organisations and through direct support, the economic and political reforms that will be undertaken," said Rice, on the first visit by a US secretary of state to this Arab country in two years.