Residents flee the scene of a car bomb that targeted Beirut's southern suburb of Haret Hreik on January 2, 2014.
Beirut:
A car bomb killed four people in southern Beirut on Thursday, the fourth attack to hit the Hezbollah bastion since the Shiite group announced its intervention in Syria last year, the health minister said.
The bombing came just weeks after a twin suicide bombing killed 25 people at the Iranian embassy in the same area and marked a new breach of the tight security in Hezbollah's stronghold in the capital's southern suburbs.
Hezbollah's public confirmation last April that its fighters had intervened in the Syrian civil war alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces has deepened sectarian divisions between Shiites and Sunnis, most of whom sympathise with the rebels.
"The toll from the terrorist explosion in Haret Hreik is four killed and 65 wounded," Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said in a statement carried by the official National News Agency.
Earlier, a ministry source had reported five killed.
An AFP photographer in the densely populated area saw flames and smoke rising from burning vehicles and at least three damaged buildings.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television aired footage of bystanders scrambling to douse burning vehicles in a car park beneath a building whose facade had been burned out.
"The terrorist explosion targeted a densely populated residential area, just 150 to 200 metres (yards) away from Hezbollah's political bureau," Al-Manar reported, while adding that the building was not thought to have been the target.
The district is symbolic for Hezbollah, which once based many of its leadership institutions in the area. Al-Manar's studios were once just 200 metres away.
Much of the neighbourhood was reduced to rubble during the massive Israeli air bombing that accompanied its 2006 war with Hezbollah, but it has since been rebuilt.
The blast hit the busy Al-Arid Street commercial district. Panicked residents scurried around the streets as Al-Manar broadcast warnings to leave the area for fear of further bombs.
The National News Agency reported that the explosion was caused by an explosives-packed four-wheel-drive vehicle.
A statement from caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said "the hand of terrorism does not differentiate between us, and it does not want stability for this country. Rather, it is planning a despicable conspiracy to drown the Lebanese in sectarian strife."
The US embassy tweeted: "We condemn the terrorist bombing in Dahieh, Beirut. Our condolences to the victims and their families."
And British Ambassador Tom Fletcher tweeted: "Condemn unequivocally callous attack in Beirut. Lebanese civilians again victims. Thoughts with their families and emergency teams."
Thursday's blast is the fourth bomb attack in south Beirut since Hezbollah announced it was fighting in Syria.
Prior to the bombing of the Iranian embassy, the southern suburbs suffered two bomb attacks.
One killed 27 people on August 15. A blast earlier that month caused no fatalities but wounded some 50 people.
This blast also comes amid soaring Sunni-Shiite tensions over the Syria civil war.
It also comes less than a week on from a car bomb in central Beirut that killed eight people, including an anti-Syrian former finance minister, Mohammad Chatah.
And car bomb attacks against two mosques in northern Lebanon's majority Sunni Tripoli on August 24 killed at least 42 people.
On Wednesday, Defence Minister Fayez Ghosn revealed that troops had arrested the leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked group that claimed the Iranian embassy attack.
Saudi national Majid al-Majid, "emir" of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, was being interrogated at a secret location, Ghosn said, without specifying when he was arrested.
Riyadh welcomed Majid's arrest, Saudi-owned daily Al-Hayat reported on Thursday.
The group was formed in 2009 and is believed to have branches in both the Arabian Peninsula and Lebanon.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 262 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011.
A Hezbollah commander, who had been missing for months in Syria, was buried in Lebanon on Wednesday after his body was repatriated following his torture and killing by rebels, relatives told AFP.
The bombing came just weeks after a twin suicide bombing killed 25 people at the Iranian embassy in the same area and marked a new breach of the tight security in Hezbollah's stronghold in the capital's southern suburbs.
Hezbollah's public confirmation last April that its fighters had intervened in the Syrian civil war alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces has deepened sectarian divisions between Shiites and Sunnis, most of whom sympathise with the rebels.
"The toll from the terrorist explosion in Haret Hreik is four killed and 65 wounded," Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said in a statement carried by the official National News Agency.
Earlier, a ministry source had reported five killed.
An AFP photographer in the densely populated area saw flames and smoke rising from burning vehicles and at least three damaged buildings.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television aired footage of bystanders scrambling to douse burning vehicles in a car park beneath a building whose facade had been burned out.
"The terrorist explosion targeted a densely populated residential area, just 150 to 200 metres (yards) away from Hezbollah's political bureau," Al-Manar reported, while adding that the building was not thought to have been the target.
The district is symbolic for Hezbollah, which once based many of its leadership institutions in the area. Al-Manar's studios were once just 200 metres away.
Much of the neighbourhood was reduced to rubble during the massive Israeli air bombing that accompanied its 2006 war with Hezbollah, but it has since been rebuilt.
The blast hit the busy Al-Arid Street commercial district. Panicked residents scurried around the streets as Al-Manar broadcast warnings to leave the area for fear of further bombs.
The National News Agency reported that the explosion was caused by an explosives-packed four-wheel-drive vehicle.
A statement from caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said "the hand of terrorism does not differentiate between us, and it does not want stability for this country. Rather, it is planning a despicable conspiracy to drown the Lebanese in sectarian strife."
The US embassy tweeted: "We condemn the terrorist bombing in Dahieh, Beirut. Our condolences to the victims and their families."
And British Ambassador Tom Fletcher tweeted: "Condemn unequivocally callous attack in Beirut. Lebanese civilians again victims. Thoughts with their families and emergency teams."
Thursday's blast is the fourth bomb attack in south Beirut since Hezbollah announced it was fighting in Syria.
Prior to the bombing of the Iranian embassy, the southern suburbs suffered two bomb attacks.
One killed 27 people on August 15. A blast earlier that month caused no fatalities but wounded some 50 people.
This blast also comes amid soaring Sunni-Shiite tensions over the Syria civil war.
It also comes less than a week on from a car bomb in central Beirut that killed eight people, including an anti-Syrian former finance minister, Mohammad Chatah.
And car bomb attacks against two mosques in northern Lebanon's majority Sunni Tripoli on August 24 killed at least 42 people.
On Wednesday, Defence Minister Fayez Ghosn revealed that troops had arrested the leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked group that claimed the Iranian embassy attack.
Saudi national Majid al-Majid, "emir" of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, was being interrogated at a secret location, Ghosn said, without specifying when he was arrested.
Riyadh welcomed Majid's arrest, Saudi-owned daily Al-Hayat reported on Thursday.
The group was formed in 2009 and is believed to have branches in both the Arabian Peninsula and Lebanon.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 262 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011.
A Hezbollah commander, who had been missing for months in Syria, was buried in Lebanon on Wednesday after his body was repatriated following his torture and killing by rebels, relatives told AFP.
