BEIRUT, Lebanon — A powerful explosion hit the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday afternoon in a neighborhood populated by supporters of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party, in what appeared to be the latest in a spree of bombings and reprisal bombings over Hezbollah's support for the government of neighboring Syria in that country's civil war.

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Hezbollah's Al Manar television channel showed scenes of chaos in a residential area, with smoke rising above charred cars, crowds of people pushing past one another and ambulances and fire trucks arriving at the scene. The channel said that at least three people had been killed and eight wounded.

The blast came six days after a car bomb killed a prominent member of the Future bloc, the Sunni party that is Hezbollah's main political rival. And it came a day after reports surfaced of the arrest by Lebanese authorities of a Saudi militant who leads the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a group affiliated with Al Qaeda that claimed responsibility for a November suicide bombing at the Beirut embassy of Iran, Hezbollah's ally.

The recent bombings are part of a string of escalating attacks in recent months believed to be related to the nearly three-year-old conflict in Syria, which has deepened Lebanon's pre-existing political and sectarian divisions. Hezbollah backs the Syrian government, sending its fighters to aid the army, and the Future movement backs the insurgency, which Lebanese Sunni militants have crossed the border to join.

In a video statement last week, a cleric acting as a spokesman for the Abdullah Azzam Brigades declared that the group would not stop its bombings until Hezbollah withdraws its fighters from Syria and Lebanese authorities release youths imprisoned for militant activities. Lebanese officials had expressed concern after the arrest of the group's leader, Majid al-Majid, about the possibility of retaliatory attacks.