The war across the Syria border has caused more needless bloodshed, according to BBC News. The double suicide bombing outside the Iranian embassy in Lebanon has resulted in twenty-two people dead and one hundred forty injured. This is also the first attack on an Iranian target. Sheikh Ibrahim Ansari, the Iranian cultural attaché, is dead. It is unclear whether or not he was in the embassy or located in one of the nearby residential buildings. He had only been in charge for one month. Iran supports the Lebanese Shia militant group by sending soldiers to Syria in backing of Bashar al-Assad. The bombing suspects were from Sunnis of Lebanon. The first suicide attacker came in on a motorcycle and the other in a four-wheel drive vehicle. It is one of the worst attacks to ever occur in Shia southern Beirut and may be payback for the Iranian support of President Assad.
The Syrian army is cutting off rebels’ supply routes into Lebanon and the Iranian assistance is only making things worse. A Lebanese group is responsible for the attack on the embassy. Lebanese Sunni Muslim fighters have joined with the Sunni rebels in Syria and some of the rebels groups are connected to al-Qaeda.
There is currently a football game being played in Beirut between Iran and Lebanon, but there are no spectators to watch and cheer. Iranian players are wearing a black ribbon on their uniforms in memorial of the victims in this most recent attack. William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary, commented, “The UK is strongly committed to supporting stability in Lebanon and seeing those responsible for this attack brought to justice.”
The conflict in Syria has resulted in violence in Lebanon before and sadly, it may not be the last time. South Beirut, which is near the Iranian embassy is a highly Hezbollah area and has been the center of many recent attacks over the past few months. The Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, said the “cowardly attack” and “aim of the blast is to stir up the situation in Lebanon and use the Lebanese arena to convey messages.” In August twenty-seven people were killed in a car bomb and later, also in August, four hundred people were injured and forty people were killed in blasts outside Tripoli mosques. The road linking the coast to the capital is now controlled by the Syrian government and the suburbs in Damascus which are highly rebel populated will have to be watched under close guard.
Image Credit: BBC News