Al Qaeda-linked group claims Beirut bombings

[Sally]

Wasn't Lebanon once called the Paris of the Middle East? It seems no more.

Al Qaeda-linked group claims Beirut bombings
By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:42am EST

At least four dead in twin suicide blasts


- The al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed a twin bomb attack in Beirut on Wednesday, saying such attacks would continue until Hezbollah forces withdrew from the fighting in Syria and its own fighters were released from Lebanese jails.
The radical Lebanese group, which claimed the attack on its Twitter account, also said it was responsible for a November 19 attack on the Iranian embassy that killed 23 people, using the same tactic of twin suicide bombs. In both cases, most of the victims were civilians.

Read more at:

Al Qaeda-linked group claims Beirut bombings | Reuters

 

[waltky]

Mebbe we should just get outta the way an' let the Sunni's an' Shia have at each other an' then pick up the pieces of whatever's left over...

No. 1 Sunni Terrorist Group, ISIS, Claims to Target No. 1 Shi’ite Terrorist Group, Hezbollah, in Beirut
November 13, 2015 | The world’s most dangerous Sunni terrorist organization, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), claimed responsibility Thursday for lethal suicide bombings in southern Beirut, a stronghold of the world’s leading Shi’ite terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

The blasts, which Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station said cost at least 41 lives, was the deadliest expression yet of the spillover of the sectarian conflict in neighboring Syria, where ISIS and Hezbollah are among the groups fighting each other. Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian civil war has made it a target back home of the type of terrorism for which it has itself been notorious for decades. Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor are supporting the regime of President Bashar Assad, an adherent of the Shi’ite Allawite sect, while the mostly Sunni rebels trying to oust Assad include al-Qaeda affiliates and ISIS, the latter also fighting to expand its self-declared caliphate.

Lebanese soldiers and civilians near the site of a twin suicide bombing attack in southern Beirut​

While Hezbollah was the declared target of the bombers – according to ISIS’ claim of responsibility – victims of the blasts in a busy shopping district were mostly civilians, including children, according to Lebanese officials. One Hezbollah security official, named as Hussein Yaghi (Abu Mortada) was reportedly among the dead. The attack, the deadliest in the Lebanese capital in many years, came after a year-long relative lull in bombings and attacks linked to the conflict in Syria. Previous large bombings, including several in Beirut in 2013 and 2014 – targeting Hezbollah areas, the Iranian Embassy and an Iranian cultural center – were claimed by an al-Qaeda affiliate.

This time ISIS claimed responsibility. In a statement circulated on online accounts associated with ISIS, the group said “soldiers of the caliphate” had detonated explosives in a Shi’ite area, the AFP news agency reported. “After the apostates gathered in the area, one of the knights of martyrdom detonated his explosive belt in the midst of them,” it said. The statement used a pejorative term extremist Sunnis use for Shi’ites, Rafidah (“those who reject”), saying at least 40 Shia had been killed in the attack on what it called the Hezbollah “stronghold.”

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[aris2chat]

Beirut suicide bombings kill over 40 - CNN.com