View Photo Gallery — Double bombing kills at least 23, including diplomat, near Iranian Embassy in Beirut: Twin explosions are reported near facility in residential neighborhood. At least one diplomat is reported killed, 147 are wounded, in act that is escalation of sectarian violence spilling over from civil war in Syria.
By Loveday Morris and Ahmed Ramadan, Updated: Tuesday, November 19, 12:31 PM
BEIRUT —Twin explosions near the Iranian Embassy in Beirut on Tuesday killed 23 people, including Iran’s cultural attaché, Lebanese and Iranian officials said. The blasts appeared to be the latest in a string of sectarian bombings linked to
the war in neighboring Syria.
The first explosion in the Bir Hasan area of the Lebanese capital detonated outside the residence of Iranian Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi, Iran’s state news agency said. The news agency, citing information from Roknabadi, said cultural attaché Ibrahim Ansari was killed.
Witnesses said the initial blast brought many residents out onto the street or to their balconies, leaving them vulnerable to the much more powerful explosion which detonated about two minutes later.
Images from the scene showed bodies lying in the street, and the twisted burning wreckage of cars, while medics rushed some of the injured away on stretchers. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a total of 147 people were wounded.
The Abdullah Azzam Brigade, an Islamist group with links to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in a message on the social media site Twitter.
“The attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut was a twin martyrdom operation by two heroes of
the Sunni in Lebanon,” said Sheikh Sirajeddine Zuraiqat, a cleric affiliated with the group. He said the group would continue such attacks until prisoners being held in Lebanon are released and forces from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah are withdrawn from Syria, where they have joined forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad to try to quell a largely Sunni uprising.
The long-running Syrian civil war has inflamed
sectarian tensions in Lebanon and throughout the region, with Assad also receiving support from Shiite Iran. Tit-for-tat bombings have targeted both
Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in Lebanon this year, as Syria’s
fragile neighbor struggles to insulate itself from the violence.
The Azzam Brigade has repeatedly demanded that Hezbollah, which is financed and backed by Iran, remove its forces from Syria. Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, the brigade’s leader, called in August for Sunnis in Lebanon and Syria to unite in fighting Hezbollah, which he described as the “party of Iran.”
Outside the embassy on Tuesday, a large crater was visible in the road beyond the cordons erected by security officials. Forensic teams in white overalls picked through the evidence. Smoldering cars lined the glass-strewn streets, while black-shirted armed gunmen affiliated with the Amal political party, an ally of Hezbollah, patrolled the largely Shiite neighborhood.
A security official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the first bomber was on a motorcycle and tried to ram a checkpoint outside the embassy, while the second bomber followed in a car. Ansari was killed as he was entering the building, the official said. Other reports said the first bomber, wearing a suicide vest, was on foot.
A 23-year-old student who lives less than 100 yards from the blast site said she was in the kitchen when she heard the first, smaller explosion at around 10 a.m. The student, who wanted to be identified only by her first name, Hiba, said she ran to her balcony to see what had happened but was called back in by her maid. The second blast blew in her windows, but she escaped injury.
Others were not so lucky. Five people who work at the furniture store where Rabieh Istanbuli is a manager were injured, Istanbuli said. The store’s front steps were spattered with blood.
“The glass just surrounded me,” Istanbuli said of the moment when the second blast detonated. “I saw some people falling down from their balconies. . . . There were a lot of dead people, black from the fire.”
About the size of Delaware, Lebanon has been flooded with an
influx of more than 816,000 refugees from Syria, making up one-fifth of the population of the country. As the war has raged next door, violence has periodically spilled over the border as well.
More than two dozen people were killed in
coordinated car bombings outside two Sunni mosques in the port city of Tripoli in August, eight days after a
car bomb killed at least 21 people in a Shiite suburb of Beirut.
The violence is being closely monitored by Israel, Lebanon’s southern neighbor, which considers both Hezbollah and Iran to be significant threats. In August,
Israel bombed a base run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command in Lebanon, in response to the launching of four rockets across Israel’s northern border hours earlier. It was Israel’s first airstrike inside Lebanon since its 2006 war with Hezbollah.
The Popular Front denied any connection to the rockets, and the Abdullah Azzam Brigade — the same group that said it was behind Tuesday’s bombing — eventually claimed responsibility.
Despite the brigade’s claim on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry blamed Israel for the attack that killed its diplomat.
“The terrorist bombing in front of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut is an inhuman and vicious act perpetrated by Israel and its terror agents,” ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
But a close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel played no role.
“Israeli security gains nothing from bloodshed,” said Tzachi Hanegbi, a parliamentarian and former intelligence minister. “I think it is a result of the tension in Lebanon, following the decision by Hezbollah — or Iran forcing Hezbollah — to participate in Assad’s efforts to survive in Syria.”
Lebanese politicians condemned Tuesday’s attack. “There is division in the country and tension, which is not helping in reducing the impact of the Syrian war on us. It’s causing problems both socially and politically,” parliamentarian Alan Aoun told the television station MTV. “It’s not the first explosion; we hope it’s the last one.”
At a snack shop and supermarket near the site of the bombing, sales assistants wept as they went about serving customers.
“This is too much; it’s devastating,” said Hanadi Nahhas, a 30-year-old employee. “The second bomb was so loud we thought it was an Israeli airstrike. Our delivery boy, Mohammed, was killed — he is just 16.”
William Booth in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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