SIDON, Lebanon (AFP) – Lebanese soldiers shot dead a man carrying a hand grenade outside the Palestinian refugee camp  of Ein el-Helweh on Saturday, an army spokesman said.  "The man was carrying a hand grenade and we are also investigating whether the belt he was wearing contained an explosives charge," the spokesman said, refusing to provide any further details. The man’s body was still at the scene and soldiers prevented journalists and photographers from approaching it, the spokesman said.

Security forces told an AFP correspondent at the scene that they would carry out a controlled explosion involving the body. Eyewitnesses said the man was shot close to an army checkpoint in the Taameer Ein el-Helweh zone, which is controlled by the military, except for a southern part which is considered a bastion of the Islamist group Jund Al-Sham. It was not immediately clear where the man had come from. The incident came just hours after a Lebanese soldier was killed in a blast at an army intelligence post near the northern city of Tripoli and another explosive device was defused, a security official told AFP.

He said it was unclear what caused the 5:00 am (0200 GMT) explosion in the Abdeh area near the northern outskirts of the city.

The army named the victim as Ussama Hassan, saying he was charged with keeping the peace in the Abdeh area.

The security official said the army found another device inside the post primed and ready to detonate but that explosives experts defused it before it went off.

Investigators are trying to determine when the explosives were planted, the official said.

The blast and the shooting came as Lebanon seeks to form a new government of national unity following a deal to end an 18-month political crisis that brought the country to the brink of civil war.

The deal struck in Qatar between the Western-backed ruling bloc and the Hezbollah-led opposition called for the election of army chief Michel Sleiman as president, the formation of a cabinet of national unity in which the opposition has veto power over key decisions and a new electoral law.

Sleiman was elected last Sunday and he appointed incumbent Fuad Siniora to head the new government.

Saturday’s blast also comes a year after the Lebanese army was involved in deadly battles with Islamist militants in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp just north of Tripoli.

More than 400 people were killed, including 168 soldiers, in more than three months of fighting which ended in September.