A suicide bomber has blown up his car in southern Beirut near an army checkpoint, killing himself and wounding several people watching the soccer World Cup in a nearby cafe.

The late Monday bombing came just three days after a failed attempt to kill one of the top security officials in Lebanon, which has suffered a wave of sectarian violence linked to the civil war in neighboring Syria.

Monday's explosion, shortly before midnight (2100 GMT), killed the bomber and wounded 19 people, Lebanon's civil defense force said. An emergency worker at the nearby Sahel hospital said it treated 11 lightly wounded people.

Television footage from the scene showed the blackened wreckage of a car, surrounded by damaged vehicles.

Windows in nearby buildings were shattered by the blast, which occurred in a mainly Shia Muslim district of southern Beirut inhabited by supporters of the Shia group Amal, an ally of the resistance movement Hezbollah.

The Syrian conflict has spilled over into sectarian violence in Lebanon, with rocket attacks on Shia towns in the Bekaa Valley, close to the border with Syria, and bombings of Shia and Sunni targets in Lebanon's main coastal cities.

Security forces have been on high alert since a suicide bomber killed one person and wounded 37 near the Syrian border on Friday in an attack that narrowly missed Major General Abbas Ibrahim, the head of Lebanon's General Security department.

The latest violence in Lebanon comes after terrorist groups including the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) swept through north and west Iraq and pushing towards the government in Baghdad.

"What is happening in Iraq isn't far from what is happening in Lebanon, but Lebanon will not let ISIL spread here," Hezbollah parliamentarian Ali Ammar told Al-Manar television.

One security source said before Monday night's explosion that security forces were hunting for two potential suicide bombers in the Lebanese capital.

BA/BA