BEIRUT—A car bomb on Thursday ripped through a Hezbollah stronghold in a crowded district of southern Beirut, days after one in another part of the Lebanese capital killed a politician who opposed the Shiite political and militant group.
Thursday’s bombing, which killed five people, drew warnings from officials across Lebanon’s divided political spectrum that the country was teetering on the edge of sectarian warfare, threatening the kind of tit-for-tat killings that marked the country’s 1975-90 civil war.
Tensions have surged at home as Lebanon has been pulled into the war in neighboring Syria over the past three years, ratcheting up violence. Three bombs have struck Beirut’s southern suburbs—known broadly as Dahyeh after the Arabic word for suburb—in the past year, apparently targeting Hezbollah and its supporters.
Hezbollah has sent fighters to Syria to bolster regime troops in their fight against mostly Sunni rebels, a role that became public and pronounced last summer. Since then, Sunni militant groups in Lebanon and the region have vowed to strike Hezbollah at home in retaliation.
No one claimed responsibility for the latest bombing, which struck the neighborhood of Haret Hreik, home to businesses and residences. By death toll and wreckage, it appeared much smaller than a suicide bombing that struck a nearby area in the same suburb in August that killed at least two dozen people.
Hezbollah officials have blamed previous blasts on Israel and Sunni jihadist groups. Both Hezbollah and its regional sponsor, Iran, support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Lebanon’s Sunni parties, backed by Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia, support Syria’s rebel insurgency.
“This is a major crisis that is engulfing us,” Lebanon’s interim defense minister, Fayez Ghosn, told a local television station. “We need to come together. We need a government to bring all Lebanese together,” said Mr. Ghosn, a member of a pro-Hezbollah party. “People are getting tired of this.”
Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s second-in-command, called for political dialogue and warned against retaliatory violence.
“Lebanon is on the path to destruction, if there is no political understanding,” he told Hezbollah’s Al Manar television hours after the bombing. “This country is not anyone’s playground. No side can cancel the other out.”
The latest bombing also comes as Lebanon investigates a possible suspect in the November attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, a Saudi national who is on Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted list and heads a small Sunni militant group, Abdullah Azzam Brigades, that claimed responsibility for the attack.
A person believed to be Majid bin Muhammad bin Abdullah Almajid, who Lebanese officials said had been hiding in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon for several years, is in the custody of Lebanese military intelligence, Lebanese and U.S. officials said.
Lebanon’s previous government resigned in March over political and sectarian tensions, mainly because of the Syrian war. Opposing parties have been locked in negotiations over forming a cabinet, with a key issue being Hezbollah’s representation.
The country’s political system is based on proportional representation for religious communities. Parliament and cabinet members have been locked in disagreement over several local issues, many related to the war in Syria, leading to a delay in parliament elections and a cabinet void.
The subsequent power vacuum has heightened a sense of insecurity and fears over growing radicalism and violence in a country being consumed by the fight in and over its much-larger neighbor, Syria.
In addition to the five dead, 77 people were injured, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said. The Lebanese Army said the explosion came from 45 pounds of explosives in an olive-green Grand Cherokee. Body parts were found in the car, indicating a possible suicide bomber, the army said. Local media said the car had been recently reported as stolen by its owner.
Many Lebanese viewed the bombing of a Shiite stronghold as retaliation for last week’s bombing that killed Mohamad Chatah, a former finance minister and ambassador to the U.S.—even as the perpetrators, motives and targets of both car bombs remained unclear.
Mr. Chatah was an adviser to Saad Hariri, a former prime minister leading Lebanon’s main anti-Hezbollah, pro-Western political group, the Future Movement. The bombing in which he was killed was the first to strike downtown Beirut, an upscale business and commercial district seen as the heart of Lebanon’s capital, since Lebanon became embroiled in Syria’s war.
It was also the first that appeared to target an anti-Hezbollah politician, harking back to a spate of assassinations between 2005 and 2008 blamed on Syria and its ally Hezbollah.
On Thursday, Lebanese officials sought to play down speculation and sentiment that the bombing of a Hezbollah stronghold was a retaliatory attack. But they also warned of sectarian war in terms they usually try to avoid in the media, signaling stark concerns over recent events.
A handful of politicians spoke of “fitna,” an Arabic term that denotes sectarian strife. Several ministers took to the airwaves to warn that the spate of recent bombings aimed to sow this strife.
At the site of the bombing, Mr. Khalil said violence “has hit people’s livelihoods and their lives” everywhere in Lebanon. “This is a big battle against terrorism that has spared no one.”
As he spoke, a bystander who appeared to be helping in the rescue effort shouted at the minister that the bombing was the fault of “the negligence of the security authorities”—a spontaneous outburst that reflects a broad frustration among Lebanese, with local security agencies seen as partisan to the various political groupings, and impotent amid growing violence.
Security officials tried to quiet him down, as the crowd around the minister began to chant pro-Hezbollah slogans.
Witnesses and footage from the scene showed several mangled cars and one building with dangling balcony-fronts and a damaged facade. Rescue workers urged crowds to disperse and allow medics and investigators to do their work at the site. Plainclothes Hezbollah operatives fired guns into the air to keep people away and sealed roads into the district, witnesses and local reporters said.
Hezbollah has a political office near where the bomb went off. Two Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets also have offices in the area, including a TV-broadcasting studio for Al Manar, which was destroyed in a 2006 war with Israel and rebuilt.
It wasn’t clear if any of these offices were the intended target.
Ali Kanso, a Hezbollah-allied minister of state, characterized the bombing as part of the same sequence of bombs to hit other parts of Lebanon, including last week’s bomb that killed Mr. Chatah.
“This terrorism threatens the entire span of the country,” Mr. Kanso told a local television station. “It’s the same terror that threatens Syria and Iraq,” he said, in reference to al Qaeda-linked groups there.
Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@wsj.com
Thursday’s bombing, which killed five people, drew warnings from officials across Lebanon’s divided political spectrum that the country was teetering on the edge of sectarian warfare, threatening the kind of tit-for-tat killings that marked the country’s 1975-90 civil war.
Tensions have surged at home as Lebanon has been pulled into the war in neighboring Syria over the past three years, ratcheting up violence. Three bombs have struck Beirut’s southern suburbs—known broadly as Dahyeh after the Arabic word for suburb—in the past year, apparently targeting Hezbollah and its supporters.
Hezbollah has sent fighters to Syria to bolster regime troops in their fight against mostly Sunni rebels, a role that became public and pronounced last summer. Since then, Sunni militant groups in Lebanon and the region have vowed to strike Hezbollah at home in retaliation.
No one claimed responsibility for the latest bombing, which struck the neighborhood of Haret Hreik, home to businesses and residences. By death toll and wreckage, it appeared much smaller than a suicide bombing that struck a nearby area in the same suburb in August that killed at least two dozen people.
Hezbollah officials have blamed previous blasts on Israel and Sunni jihadist groups. Both Hezbollah and its regional sponsor, Iran, support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Lebanon’s Sunni parties, backed by Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia, support Syria’s rebel insurgency.
“This is a major crisis that is engulfing us,” Lebanon’s interim defense minister, Fayez Ghosn, told a local television station. “We need to come together. We need a government to bring all Lebanese together,” said Mr. Ghosn, a member of a pro-Hezbollah party. “People are getting tired of this.”
Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s second-in-command, called for political dialogue and warned against retaliatory violence.
“Lebanon is on the path to destruction, if there is no political understanding,” he told Hezbollah’s Al Manar television hours after the bombing. “This country is not anyone’s playground. No side can cancel the other out.”
The latest bombing also comes as Lebanon investigates a possible suspect in the November attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, a Saudi national who is on Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted list and heads a small Sunni militant group, Abdullah Azzam Brigades, that claimed responsibility for the attack.
A person believed to be Majid bin Muhammad bin Abdullah Almajid, who Lebanese officials said had been hiding in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon for several years, is in the custody of Lebanese military intelligence, Lebanese and U.S. officials said.
Lebanon’s previous government resigned in March over political and sectarian tensions, mainly because of the Syrian war. Opposing parties have been locked in negotiations over forming a cabinet, with a key issue being Hezbollah’s representation.
The country’s political system is based on proportional representation for religious communities. Parliament and cabinet members have been locked in disagreement over several local issues, many related to the war in Syria, leading to a delay in parliament elections and a cabinet void.
The subsequent power vacuum has heightened a sense of insecurity and fears over growing radicalism and violence in a country being consumed by the fight in and over its much-larger neighbor, Syria.
In addition to the five dead, 77 people were injured, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said. The Lebanese Army said the explosion came from 45 pounds of explosives in an olive-green Grand Cherokee. Body parts were found in the car, indicating a possible suicide bomber, the army said. Local media said the car had been recently reported as stolen by its owner.
Many Lebanese viewed the bombing of a Shiite stronghold as retaliation for last week’s bombing that killed Mohamad Chatah, a former finance minister and ambassador to the U.S.—even as the perpetrators, motives and targets of both car bombs remained unclear.
Mr. Chatah was an adviser to Saad Hariri, a former prime minister leading Lebanon’s main anti-Hezbollah, pro-Western political group, the Future Movement. The bombing in which he was killed was the first to strike downtown Beirut, an upscale business and commercial district seen as the heart of Lebanon’s capital, since Lebanon became embroiled in Syria’s war.
It was also the first that appeared to target an anti-Hezbollah politician, harking back to a spate of assassinations between 2005 and 2008 blamed on Syria and its ally Hezbollah.
On Thursday, Lebanese officials sought to play down speculation and sentiment that the bombing of a Hezbollah stronghold was a retaliatory attack. But they also warned of sectarian war in terms they usually try to avoid in the media, signaling stark concerns over recent events.
A handful of politicians spoke of “fitna,” an Arabic term that denotes sectarian strife. Several ministers took to the airwaves to warn that the spate of recent bombings aimed to sow this strife.
At the site of the bombing, Mr. Khalil said violence “has hit people’s livelihoods and their lives” everywhere in Lebanon. “This is a big battle against terrorism that has spared no one.”
As he spoke, a bystander who appeared to be helping in the rescue effort shouted at the minister that the bombing was the fault of “the negligence of the security authorities”—a spontaneous outburst that reflects a broad frustration among Lebanese, with local security agencies seen as partisan to the various political groupings, and impotent amid growing violence.
Security officials tried to quiet him down, as the crowd around the minister began to chant pro-Hezbollah slogans.
Witnesses and footage from the scene showed several mangled cars and one building with dangling balcony-fronts and a damaged facade. Rescue workers urged crowds to disperse and allow medics and investigators to do their work at the site. Plainclothes Hezbollah operatives fired guns into the air to keep people away and sealed roads into the district, witnesses and local reporters said.
Hezbollah has a political office near where the bomb went off. Two Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets also have offices in the area, including a TV-broadcasting studio for Al Manar, which was destroyed in a 2006 war with Israel and rebuilt.
It wasn’t clear if any of these offices were the intended target.
Ali Kanso, a Hezbollah-allied minister of state, characterized the bombing as part of the same sequence of bombs to hit other parts of Lebanon, including last week’s bomb that killed Mr. Chatah.
“This terrorism threatens the entire span of the country,” Mr. Kanso told a local television station. “It’s the same terror that threatens Syria and Iraq,” he said, in reference to al Qaeda-linked groups there.
Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@wsj.com
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