A car bomb on Tuesday rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah movement, injuring at least 53 people, Government and military sources said, even as a report from Damascus said Syria’s ruling Baath party has replaced its top leadership in a surprise move, and UN head Ban Ki-Moon called on all parties in the war to observe a truce during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The blast comes amid spiralling tension in lebanon over the civil war raging in neighbouring Syria, where Hezbollah fighters have joined President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in facing down a revolt by mainly Sunni rebels. The attack took place in a zone monitored closely by Hezbollah.
It is the most serious incident in the movement’s Beirut stronghold since the start of the Syria war more than two years ago.
“A car bomb exploded near a commercial cooperative called the Islamic Cooperation Centre in Bir al-Abed,” which lies in the heart of Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold, the military source said. lebanon’s Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil told AFP that 53 people were wounded, adding that 12 remained in hospital and two had undergone surgery. The densely populated Bir al-Abed neighbourhood is home mainly to Shia Muslims.
Several broadcasters, among them Hezbollah’s Al-Manar, showed firefighters battling several blazes while large clouds of black smoke billowed into the sky. A witness told AFP the explosion was “huge”.
“Everyone started panicking. Everyone was running left and right” after the blast, said Carole Mansour, who owns a shoe shop near the affected area.