A pair of car bombs detonated on Wednesday in front of the Iranian Cultural Center in Beirut killed at least eight people and wounded more than one hundred, the latest in a string of jihadist attacks declared to be retaliation for Hezbollah’s critical role in bolstering Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime. The Associated Press described the aftermath as one marked by “panic,” and noted that blast walls recently erected to shield the building had failed to prevent the outer façade from suffering significant damage.
The blast set cars and trees ablaze and shattered the windows of nearby buildings. Mangled metal hung from a smashed building that once held a pharmacy, a clothing shop and a well-known sweet shop, Gondoline. Blood and tattered clothes lay on the ground amid the charred remains of six cars. “I thought it was an earthquake,” said Sam Hasna, a Lebanese-Canadian citizen and owner of the Gondoline. “Everything was on fire. The whole store had crashed down. I saw shattered people, shattered cars, and I collapsed.”
Lebanon’s Daily Star conveyed a claim of responsibility from the Al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which described the attack as a retaliatory “raid” against Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors. The statement also reportedly declared that Hezbollah will not “enjoy security in Lebanon until the people of Syria feel secure,” a reference to the group’s long-standing demand that Hezbollah withdraw its troops from Syria. The Wednesday morning blasts – the detonation occurred around 9:25am, during rush hour – came just days after a speech by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in which the leader of the Shiite terror group doubled down on Hezbollah’s commitment to continue battling the largely Sunni rebel groups in Syria. Nasrallah also seemed to lay the groundwork for provoking Israel into a conflict over underwater energy resources, a move that analysts linked to Hezbollah’s efforts to rebuild its shattered brand as a Lebanese organization protecting Lebanon from Israel.
[Photo: AFP News Agency / YouTube]