41 killed in ISIL-claimed twin bombing in Beirut

The bombing was the first large-scale attack on a major Lebanese city in 11 months, reports Josh Wood.

Lebanese soldiers and civilians gather near the site of an ISIL-claimed twin bombing in the area of Burj Al Barajneh in Beirut's southern suburbs on November 13, 2015. Nabil Mounzer/EPA

BEIRUT // At least 41 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in an ISIL-claimed twin bombing that struck a Hizbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday evening.

The blasts went off in front of a shopping centre in Burj Al Barajneh at about 6pm, according to police and witnesses. In a statement posted online, ISIL said the attackers detonated explosives planted on a motorbike in an area frequented by Shiites, who they referred to as “apostates”, before a suicide bomber set off his explosive belt.

The army said the attacks had been carried out by two suicide bombers, however, and that the body of a third bomber – who had failed to detonate his explosive device – had been found at the scene of the second blast.

The state-run National News Agency said the two bombs were set off five minutes apart, a tactic commonly used to ensure the maximum number of casualties.

Hizbollah militia blocked off the area after the blasts and appeared to have detained a number of suspects.

Just hours before the Beirut blasts, a 10 kilogram bomb was found and defused in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, local media said.

The bombing was the first large-scale attack on a major Lebanese city in 11 months. In January, a twin suicide bombing of an Alawite neighbourhood in Tripoli killed nine and wounded 30. That attack was claimed by Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel group Jabhat Al Nusra.

The latest attack in Beirut came a week after a suicide bomber killed five at a gathering of Syrian Sunni clerics in the Lebanese town of Arsal, on the border with Syria.

Burj Al Barajneh is an impoverished neighbourhood comprising a Palestinian refugee camp alongside a predominantly Shiite Lebanese area. It sits next to the district of Haret Hraik where Hizbollah’s headquarters are located.

Fighters from the Lebanese Shiite movement are battling ISIL in neighbouring Syria alongside president Bashar Al Assad’s forces.

In 2013 and 2014, suicide bombings were a regular occurrence in Lebanon. They often appeared to be driven by sectarian tensions deepened by Syria’s civil war and Hizbollah’s intervention in that war.

The bombings in those years coincided with increased street battles in parts of the country between supporters and detractors of Syria’s government.

However, after Lebanese security forces began more aggressively confronting militants in Lebanon late last year following the takeover of Arsal by Jabhat Al Nusra and ISIL fighters, bombings became increasingly rare.

* With additional reporting from Agence France-Presse and Reuters