Powerful car bombs exploded on Friday outside two Sunni Muslim mosques in the lebanese city of Tripoli, killing at least 29 people and wounding 500, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said. “Up to now, there are 29 martyrs and 500 wounded in hospitals,” he said on television, without saying whether this was the final toll.
Both explosions took place as worshippers were filing out after weekly Muslim prayers, in a city where Sunni supporters of rebels in neighbouring Syria frequently clash with Alawites, who support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The first blast hit in the city centre, near the home of outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati, although his office said he was not in Tripoli at the time. The second struck near the port of the restive city with a Sunni majority, close to the home of former police chief Ashraf Rifi, a security source said.
Number of charred bodies near the Al-Taqwa mosque and the bodies of five children brought out from it. lebanese television channels aired footage of the dead, of buildings with their fronts blown in and vehicles ablaze, as bystanders rushed to help the wounded.