Video - Explosions Target Iranian Embassy in Beirut – at least 23 People Killed, injures 146.

Explosions Target Iranian Embassy in Beirut – at least 23 People Killed, injures 146.(RT).

The al-Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam brigades said on Tuesday they were behind double suicide attack on Iranian embassy in Beirut 

Two blasts near the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed at least 23 people, injuring 146 and causing havoc and a massive fire in the Lebanese capital. Six buildings were reportedly destroyed in the embassy compound.

According to a local news source, Almanar News, the harrowing scene was caused by 100kg of TNT loaded into a Renault Rapid. Security sources on the ground said there were two blasts - the first caused by a person on a motorbike, while the second was by a suicide bomber who tried to ram the compound with the car.

Witnesses at the scene reported that they occurred within one or two minutes of each other.

Injured people and destroyed buildings were seen on very disturbing pictures circulated by Lebanese media in the immediate aftermath.The Iranian cultural attaché was also killed in the attack.

Witnesses speaking to Al Arabiya reported seeing smoke rising from the battered embassy compound, while footage from the bloody scene showed raging fires, with the death toll rising by the minute.

It is not clear who was behind the attack at this time, but the area where the blasts occurred is significant in two ways: it is considered to be a stronghold for the Lebanese Shiite faction, Hezbollah. And secondly, it is a popular area and a home to many families of Iranian diplomats working in Lebanon.

The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon reacted promptly to the situation, saying that it was beyond any doubt that the embassy was the target of the attack and placing blame on a "Zionist entity." He added that such attacks only "keep us strong and proves the righteousness of our stances." Minutes before it was reported that the Iranian cultural adviser for Lebanon was wounded in the blast, but shortly thereafter succumbed to his injuries.

Iran's foreign ministry subsequently added that the blast was the work of Israeli mercenaries.

Syrian information minister Omran Zoabi to al-Manar has come out with a similar opinion, saying that Israeli and Saudi intelligence are behind the explosions.

Lebanon and Iran enjoy close relations, both having a large Shiite population.

This is not the first attack that has occurred in the area. Hezbollah compounds have come under frequent fire before, especially as Sunni-on-Shia tensions have begun to mirror each other across the Middle East.

“Whoever did this is a monstrous terrorist...The resistance (Hezbollah) message is that it will continue. It will continue in all its efforts to defeat Israel and defeat the terrorists,” said Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah official.

Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut hit by rockets.

Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut hit by rockets.(TOI).

BEIRUT (AP) — Rockets slammed Sunday into two southern Beirut neighborhoods that are strongholds of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, wounding at least four people, security officials said.

The incident raises fears that Syria’s civil war is increasingly moving to Lebanon, whose sectarian divide mirrors that of Syria. One leader of Syria’s overwhelmingly Sunni rebels had threatened to strike Hezbollah strongholds to retaliate against the Iranian-backed Shiite group for sending fighters to assist Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Street fighting between rival Lebanese groups has been relatively common since the end of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war, but rocket or artillery attacks on Beirut neighborhoods are rare.

One rocket fired Saturday landed in the Mar Mikhael district on the southern edge of the capital, striking a car exhibit on the street and causing all four casualties. Another struck the second floor of an apartment in a building in Chiyah district south of Beirut, about two kilometers (one mile) away from Mar Mikhael. The apartment’s balcony appeared peppered with shrapnel, but no one was wounded.

The officials said it was not clear from where the rockets were fired. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The state-run National News Agency said among the wounded in the Mar Mikhael blast were three Syrians. Interior Minister Marwan Charbel blamed “saboteurs” and said: “We hope what is happening in Syria does not move to Lebanon.”

An ongoing battle in Syrian town of Qusair on the Lebanese border, which government troops backed by Hezbollah pounded with artillery on Saturday, has laid bare the Shiite group’s growing role in the Syrian conflict. Hezbollah initially tried to play down its involvement, but could no longer do so after dozens of its fighters were killed in the town and buried in large funerals in Lebanon.

Col. Abdul-Jabbar al-Aqidi, commander of the Syrian rebels’ Military Council in Aleppo, appeared in a video this week while apparently en route to Qusair, in which he threatened to strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs in retaliation for Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria.

“We used to say before, ‘We are coming Bashar.’ Now we say, ‘We are coming Bashar and we are coming Hassan Nasrallah,’” he said, in reference to Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

“We will strike at your strongholds in Dahiyeh, God willing,” he said, using the Lebanese name for Hezbollah’s power center in southern Beirut. The video was still online on Youtube on Sunday.

On Saturday, Nasrallah vowed to help propel Assad to victory in Syria’s bloody civil war, warning that the fall of the Damascus regime would give rise to extremists and plunge the Middle East into a “dark period.”Read the full story here.

Russian ships divert to Beirut, abandon Syrian port.

Russian ships divert to Beirut, abandon Syrian port.(AA).Russian warships will dock in Beirut instead of Syria’s Tartous port, where Moscow has a naval facility, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

“The escalating conflict in Syria and [doubts] over the entry of Russian ships into the port of Tartous forced us to search for safer ports for [docking], and one of them is in Beirut,” a diplomatic source told Interfax.

A flotilla of Russian Baltic Sea vessels came into the port in Beirut recently, added the source.

However, the source insisted that Russia was not considering abandoning its position in Tartous for the moment. The Syrian port currently serves as a refueling station for Russian ships, its acts as Moscow’s only Mediterranean Port.

“The port of Tartous continues to be the only official [facility] for Russian ships [in the Mediterranean],” the source explained. “Once events in Syria become more predictable, we will be able to [come to] a position on continuing the use of Tartous.” Read the full story here.

Video - Beirut - "PLO boy scouts," a.k.a. Child Suicide Bombers in Training.