Two suicide bombers targeted the Iranian cultural centre in Beirut on Wednesday, killing four people and themselves in an attack claimed by Sunni militants who said it was a response to the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in the Syrian war. The army said two cars packed with explosives had been used in the rush hour attack in the predominantly Shia southern suburbs of Beirut. Similar tactics were used in a twin suicide attack on the nearby Iranian embassy in November.
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an al Qaeda-linked group, claimed responsibility for the attack, which wounded more than 100 people and was condemned by Lebanon's Sunni Prime Minister Tammam Salam as an act of terrorism. In a post on Twitter, the Brigades described the "twin martyrdom operation" on the Iranian centre as retaliation for Hezbollah's role in Syria and pledged more attacks. The blast went off about 20 metres (yards) from the targeted building.
The judge investigating the attack said a total of 160 kg of explosives had been used. The Iranian ambassador in Lebanon said the dead included a Lebanese policeman who had been guarding the cultural centre, but none of its staff were wounded. The area is a stronghold of the Shia movement Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the civil war in neighbouring Syria. It was the seventh such bombing in Beirut's southern suburbs since July.
Wednesday's attack using a Mercedes and a BMW blew out the windows of a nearby orphanage run by a Sunni charity. Children were peering out and screaming "bomb, bomb." Some were crying. A man working at a sweet shop opposite the bomb site said the blast shook the entire area. "We heard one explosion and then another," he said. Numerous Lebanese politicians live in the area of Wednesday's blast, not far from Beirut airport. The Kuwaiti embassy and a Lebanese army barracks are also nearby.
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