Four killed in Beirut blast
January 21, 2014
Lebanese media reported that Tuesday's explosion, which occurred on a busy street in the Haret Hreik district of Beirut, had been caused by a car bomb, possibly a suicide bomber.
Police and medical sources said at least four people had been killed and dozens of others wounded in the blast, although some reports put the death toll as high as four.
Television footage showed rescue workers and onlookers gathered around the wreckage of the vehicle.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.
Heightened tensions
This was just the latest in a series of such attacks since the Shiite militant group Hezbollah announced last spring that it had sent fighters to neighboring Syria to fight alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and against mainly Sunni Muslim rebels.
That announcement stoked already heightened tensions between Lebanon's Shiite and Sunni communities.
Tuesday's attack occurred within 100 meters (328 feet) from the site of a similar explosion earlier this month that killed six people and injured more than 70 others.
Other previous attacks have targeted mainly Sunni areas, including a car bombing in Beirut last month, which claimed the life of a prominent Sunni politician, Mohammed Chatah.
pfd/slk (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)