BEIRUT, May 22 (Xinhua) -- The Lebanese government has asked the Interpol to help find out the origin of a car used in Sunday's Ashrafiyeh blast that killed a woman and wounded 18 people, local paper The Daily Star reported online on Tuesday.

    The government is seeking the Interpol's help because the car used in the blast was a Japanese-made Suzuki but was not registered in Lebanon, security sources were quoted as saying.

    The government is to send an official request through Interpol to Japan in an attempt to discover how it entered Lebanon, added the sources.

    According to the report, the car, rigged with 35 kg of explosives that went off shortly before midnight Sunday in a parking lot near a shopping mall, was not imported to Lebanon according to the serial numbers found on the wreckage of the vehicle.

    The blast happened hours after the Lebanese army clashed with the Fatah al-Islam militants around a Palestinian refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli, and was followed in no more than 24 hours by another car bomb in the capital, which wounded 10 people.

    On Tuesday, unconfirmed media source said that the Fatah al-Islam militant group, which has been fighting against government troops for three days, has claimed responsibility for the two bombs that have rocked Beirut in the past two days.

    At least 79 people have been killed in the fighting in the worst internal violence that Lebanon has seen since that country's 1975-1990 civil war.