BEIRUT // At least five people were killed when an explosion rocked a Hizbollah area during rush hour in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday.
The Lebanese Shiite groups’ Al Manar TV showed firefighters putting out the smouldering hulks of several cars that had been set ablaze while a column of black smoke rose above the Beirut skyline.
Lebanese media said the blast was caused by a car bomb and the health ministry confirmed that five people were killed and others were wounded.
Lebanon’s the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the attack.
“The hand of terrorism does not differentiate between us, and it does not want stability for this country,” he said. “Rather, it is planning a despicable conspiracy to drown the Lebanese in sectarian strife.”
The explosion comes a week after a car bombing in downtown Beirut killed a prominent Sunni politician, Mohammed Chatah, who had been critical of the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, and his Hizbollah allies.
A number of bombings have also targeted Hizbollah in Beirut since April last year when, Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite group’s leader, confirmed that his forces were fighting alongside Mr Al Assad’s regime in his war against predominately Sunni rebels trying to topple him.
Thursday’s attack struck a district with great symbolism for Hizbollah, which once based many of its leadership institutions in the area.
Al Manar’s studios were once just 200 metres away. Much of the neighbourhood was reduced to rubble during the massive Israeli air bombing that accompanied its 2006 war with Hizbollah but it has since been rebuilt.
The blast hit the busy Al Arid Street commercial district. Panicked residents scurried around the streets as Al Manar broadcast warnings to leave the area for fear of further bombs.
Al Manar said the explosion occurred “a few hundred metres from the politburo of Hizbollah”. It said the political office was not the target of the blast.
The National News Agency reported that the explosion was caused by an explosives-packed four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Hizbollah security agents as well as Lebanese troops tried to cordon off the area to keep the angry crowds away from the blast site.
“Suddenly, the whole area went bright and we started running away,” said Ali Oleik, an accountant who works in a nearby office building. “I saw two bodies on the street, one of a woman and another of a man on a motorcycle who was totally deformed.”
Authorities brought out bomb sniffing dogs, and at one point announced that there might be another bomb, setting the crowd scattering in panic from the area.
Feelings of fear and panic have become all too normal in Beirut in recent months.
In November, a double suicide bombing hit outside the Iranian embassy in the same area and marked a new breach of the tight security in the Hizbollah stronghold. In August, a powerful car bomb killed nearly 30 people.
Mr Nasrallah blamed the attacks on a group of Sunni militants. The twin blasts against the Iranian mission in Beirut in November were claimed by Al Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a group with links to Al Qaeda. Lebanese authorities have informed Saudi authorities of the capture of the Brigades’ head, Majed Al Majed.
Iran wants to aid Lebanon in its investigation into Mr Al Majed because the attacks were claimed by the Brigades, said the Iranian ambassador, Ghzanfar Asl Roknabadi.
The attacks raise the spectre of a sharply divided Lebanon being pulled further into the Syrian conflict, which is being fought on increasingly sectarian lines pitting Sunnis against Shiites.
Syria-based Sunni rebels and militant Islamist groups fighting to topple Mr Al Assad have threatened to target Hizbollah strongholds in Lebanon in retaliation for intervening on behalf of his regime in the conflict.
* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
