BEIRUT (AP) - Villagers threw stones at U.N. peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon Saturday, lightly injuring 14 soldiers, in an attempt to prevent an investigation near the site of a recent explosion, a spokeswoman said.

In one instance, a peacekeeping patrol had to fire warning shots in the air to clear its path, said peacekeeping spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane.

Saturday's incident is believed to be the most serious confrontation between Shiite Muslims sympathetic to the militant Hezbollah group and the thousands of U.N. peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon after the 2006 war between the guerrillas and Israel.

The incident came after an explosion Tuesday in a southern village was blamed on a suspected Hezbollah weapons depot that apparently accidentally blew up.

Relations between the U.N. force and Hezbollah and its allies have been largely good, with only very limited incidents in the last three years. Sunni Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida, which is hostile to Hezbollah, are suspected of being behind the deadliest attack on the force: a car bomb that killed six Spanish peacekeepers in June 2007.