LEBANON: Tension in Beirut streets after car bomb kills 20 in Hezbollah's stronghold

Record ID: 357688

  • Title: LEBANON: Tension in Beirut streets after car bomb kills 20 in Hezbollah's stronghold
  • Date: 16th August 2013
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LEBANESE CITIZEN, RAMI, SAYING: "Concerning the blast that happened yesterday, we are so disgusted because what are the people guilty of? They are seeing how to make a living and look after their children... They do not need to be tortured more and to face explosions. We, as people, are so tired here. Enough, enough from both sides, we want it to end."
  • Embargoed: 31st August 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA6VTCNO6IS35R5LU4FQQDUBWX4
  • Story Text: There was tension in Beirut on Friday (August 16), the morning after the city's southern suburbs were struck by a car bomb which killed at least 20 people and wounded at least 200, trapping others inside damaged buildings, according to witnesses and emergency officials.
    The streets were quiet as investigators, intelligence service members, soldiers and security personnel patrolled the blast site along with residents checking the damage to their property in the stronghold of militant group Hezbollah.

    "I was home, my family, children and myself. I have the maid who hurt her shoulder and my wife fissured her head," one resident, preferring to remain anonymous, said.

    "It reminded us of the August war but what happened yesterday was an earthquake more than the August war... And what we want to say is this is a coward's work, whoever did this is a coward," he added.
    The blast, a month after a car bomb injured more than 50 people in the same district of the Lebanese capital, came amid sectarian tensions over the intervention of Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah against Sunni rebels in Syria's civil war.
    A Sunni Islamist group calling itself the Brigades of Aisha claimed responsibility for the attack and promised more operations against Hezbollah. It was not immediately possible to verify the statement, which was made in an internet video.
    Unusually, Beirut's Hamra street was almost empty on Friday morning and residents walking down the road said they had had enough.

    "Concerning the blast that happened yesterday, we are so disgusted because what are the people guilty of? They are seeing how to make a living and look after their children... They do not need to be tortured more and to face explosions. We, as people, are so tired here. Enough, enough from both sides, we want it to end," Lebanese citizen Rami said.
    Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared Friday would be a day of mourning for the victims of the Beirut blast.
    Residents of southern Beirut say Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, had been on high alert and stepped up security in the area after warnings from Syrian rebels of possible retaliation for the group's support for President Bashar al-Assad.
    There have been two previous attacks in southern Beirut this year, as Syria's conflagration seeps across the border. Two months before July 9's car bomb, two rockets were fired into the area.
    Sectarian violence fuelled by the Syrian conflict has also erupted in the Bekaa Valley and the Mediterranean port cities of Tripoli and Sidon, reflecting the renewed tensions spreading through the Middle East.
    Lebanon's Sunni Muslims mostly support the rebels in Syria, while Shi'ites have largely supported Assad, who is part of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
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