Police in Lebanon say three restaurants with US connections have been damaged by small bomb explosions.

The explosions took place early in the morning near the capital Beirut and in the northern city of Tripoli.

The restaurants were closed at the time and nobody was injured in the attacks.

Blasts caused extensive damage

In Jounieh, just north of Beirut, a Pizza Hut outlet and a nearby Winners fast food restaurant were targeted.

In Tripoli, the facade of another Pizza Hut restaurant was destroyed by a blast.

Motives for the attacks are unclear.

Anti-American sentiments

Fast food chains with American connections have been targeted in Lebanon before.

In May, a bomb exploded outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Tripoli, and in September, another bomb explosion happened under a car parked outside a McDonald's outlet in Jounieh.

Nobody was injured but the blasts caused extensive damage.

Anti-American sentiment has risen in Lebanon during the two-year-old Palestinian uprising, because of US support for Israel.

Lebanese students and activists have organised boycotts of goods and franchises associated with the United States.

Many see the US as the power that allowed Israel to invade Lebanon at the cost of thousands of lives in 1982.

Anger has intensified recently over Washington's threat of a war on Iraq.