At least two people were killed late on Saturday in a mysterious blast that shook Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, a security official said, amid reports it could have targeted the Palestinian Hamas movement.
“At least two people have been killed and a number of others injured in an explosion in the southern suburbs” of Beirut where the Shiite Hezbollah movement has its headquarters, the official said. “The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined.”
Earlier the official national news agency NNA said the blast could have been aimed at a member of the Palestinian Hamas movement in Lebanon.
The blast was “the result of three bombs placed under a car whose owner is said to be a member of Hamas,” the agency said, adding that two people were wounded in the explosion.
In a terse report, quoting unnamed security officials, Hezbollah’s Manar TV said the “blast took place in an office of the Hamas movement causing casualties.”
It did not give further details.
Hamas spokesman Raafat Murra said that the Palestinian Islamic movement had an office in the area where the blast occurred, but could not immediately say if there were casualties among members of the group.
A photographer said the blast occurred in an alley in Harek Hreik, meters away from a community center where Hezbollah was organizing a ceremony to commemorate the Shiite rituals of Ashura.
Hezbollah security forces cordoned off the area keeping journalists at bay, the photographer said.
Local TV stations also reported that an unspecified number of people were wounded in the blast, which they said targeted a Hamas official who they did not identify.
Witnesses said that local Hamas official Ali Baraka had an office in the area where the blast occurred.
Hezbollah and Hamas are both close allies and arch-foes of Israel.
In 2006 Israel waged a devastating 34-day war on Hezbollah in Lebanon, which devastated the southern suburbs and killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
The blast also came on the eve of the first anniversary of Israel’s 22-day offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip during which some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
Shiites in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon wrapped up yesterday the annual 10-day Ashura rituals that commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680AD.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah called on Lebanon’s Shiites to take part massively yesterday’s ceremony, which was to include a huge march across the southern suburbs.
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