- Title: LEBANON: Investigation into Thursday's Beirut car bomb that killed least 5
- Date: 3rd January 2014
- Summary: NEWSPAPER HEADLINE READING (Arabic) "TERRORISM STRIKES AGAIN"
- Embargoed: 18th January 2014 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Lebanon
- Country: Lebanon
- Topics: Crime,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA20FM7JGRAAJMYLQSK1QWTGJH
- Story Text: Investigators search debris of Thursday's car bomb that killed at least five people in the Hezbollah district of Beirut, wounded 66 others, destroyed several cars and damaged buildings.
Crime scene investigators sifted through the wreckage on Friday (January 3) of a car bomb that killed at least five people the previous day in Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold destroying several cars and tearing facades off buildings, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Shi'ite and Sunni targets in Lebanon.
Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said five people were killed and 66 wounded in the blast on Thursday (January 2). A security source said the blast was caused by a car bomb.
The explosion occurred less than a week after former finance minister Mohamad Chatah, a vocal critic of the Shi'ite Hezbollah militant group and its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was killed along with six other people by a car bomb in central Beirut.
Dalal Fahs, a Lebanese women living in the neighbourhood where the blast happened said that she was waiting for her husband to return home when the blast happened
"We barely reached home and then the blast happened, then I went down immediately because my husband was at work and he was on his way back home, I started searching. I could not find him, I found human remains, we were stepping on them like I have never seen before," Fahs said.
In the Hamra area in Beirut, Khaled Kammoun condemned the attack,
"There is something that can solve the situation, that parties do not participate in the conflicts, Hezbollah withdraws its army from Syria, and the other sides not to participate in a direct way inciting the Lebanese," Khaled said.
The bomb struck just after 1600 (1400 GMT) when the streets of Haaret Hreik district were packed with rush hour traffic. A Reuters Television cameraman said Hezbollah members fired into the air to disperse people, fearing possible subsequent explosions.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which was condemned by both sides of Lebanon's sectarian divide. It was not clear if a specific person was targeted by the bomb. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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