A car bomb exploded on a remote rural road in the Bekaa Valley early on Tuesday near a Hezbollah base, causing casualties, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.

Details of the incident were unclear but pictures on Lebanese television channels from the scene appeared to show at least two badly damaged vehicles, one of them overturned, and a pile of blackened, twisted metal.

A series of car bombs have struck the Lebanese capital Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli in recent months, part of a wave of violence fuelled by sectarian tensions over the civil war in neighboring Syria.

The National News Agency said ambulances were seen racing to the area, on a road linking the Bekaa villages of Sbouba and Hrabta, which was then sealed off. A security source said there appeared to be blood on the ground near the site.

Al Manar, the television channel of the militant Hezbollah group, also said the explosion was a car bomb near one of its bases and that there were casualties.

Lebanon's Sunni Muslims support the rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Shi'ite Hezbollah has sent fighters to support Assad, while many Sunni Muslim jihadis have flocked to Syria to join the rebels.-Reuters