Midnight suicide bomb kills one and wounds 20 in Beirut

One person was killed and 20 more were wounded by a suicide car bombing at a Lebanese Army checkpoint in Beirut on Monday night, the Lebanese Red Cross and security forces have reported. DNA tests identified the victim as Abdul-Karim Hodroj, a General Security officer who was reported missing just after the blast.

The state-run National News Agency said that the force of the blast threw the bomber against the wall of a fourth-floor apartment in a nearby building, leaving human remains and blood all over the balcony. It is claimed that he was a Syrian national.

Lebanese Red Cross official George Kettaneh told the Daily Star that the wounded, many of whom were in the Abu Assaf Café at the time of the blast, suffered minor injuries. The café-goers in the Beirut neighbourhood of Tayyouneh were watching the Brazil vs. Cameroon World Cup football match when a white Mercedes, loaded with an estimated 25 kilograms of TNT, exploded after driving along the wrong side of the street.

Hodroj had stopped the car and put his gun to the driver’s head. A colleague, Ali Jaber, rushed to get help from the nearby army checkpoint just before the bomber blew himself up.

Lebanon has faced an increased threat from suicide bombings recently. Last Friday another bomb went off at a police checkpoint on the Beirut-Damascus highway; a police officer was killed and 33 people were wounded. Heightened security levels are apparent across the country as ISIS and other terror groups are suspected as accomplices in the attacks, part of a spill over from the crises in Iraq and Syria.

According to Lina Khatib from Carnegie think-tank, it may not be a coincidence that the attack in the Beqaa Valley last week coincided with the ISIS surge in Iraq. While it is not yet known if ISIS is behind the Lebanon attack, Khatib said, “The crisis in Iraq has increased ISIS’s visibility, putting pressure on its Islamist rivals, namely Jabhat Al-Nusra and its affiliates, to reassert themselves.” She confirmed her belief that no matter which group is behind the attack, it is an indication of the regional spill over of the Iraq crisis.

ISIS is understood to have dormant cells in north Lebanon although it is not rich in resources and has no significant sympathetic community support. Nevertheless, it is “likely” that ISIS might conduct terrorist activities there in its bid for increased regional visibility, to show that it has far reaching influence, Khatib concluded.

Images from Anadolu News Agency