Lebanon mourns 43 killed in Beirut double bomb attack
BEIRUT (AFP) — Lebanon yesterday mourned 43 people killed in south Beirut in a twin bombing claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, the bloodiest such attack in years.
The Red Cross said at least 239 people were also wounded, several in critical condition, in the blasts that hit a busy shopping street in the Burj al- Barajneh neighborhood, where the Shiite Hezbollah movement is popular.
The attack harked back to a campaign against the group between 2013 and 2014, ostensibly in revenge for its military support of regime forces in neighboring Syria’s civil war.
But it was the largest attack ever claimed by IS in Lebanon, and among the deadliest bombings to hit the country since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Yesterday, families prepared to collect the bodies of loved ones from hospitals as the country observed a day of national mourning declared by Prime Minister Tammam Salam.
Schools were closed for the day, and politicians across Lebanon’s fractured political spectrum offered condemnations of the attack.
The blasts ripped through a street market in the poor, mainly Shiite Muslim neighborhood, staining the ground red with blood and gutting several surrounding shops.
The army said the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers, and that the body of a third who failed to detonate his explosive device was found at the scene of the second blast.
But IS gave a different version in a statement claiming responsibility for the attack that circulated online.
It said “soldiers of the Caliphate” first detonated explosives planted on a motorbike on the street.
”After the apostates gathered in the area, one of the knights of martyrdom detonated his explosive belt in the midst of them,” the statement added.
It made no reference to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, much of which is under IS control, instead using starkly sectarian language and derogatory terms for Shiite Muslims.
The Sunni extremist group considers members of the sect, as well as others who stray from its interpretation of Islam, to be apostates.