TerrorismAl Qaeda-linked Lebanese group attacks Iran’s Beirut embassy

Retaliating against the growing involvement of Hezbollah in Syria, and the growing involvement of Iran — Hezbollah’s masters – in Lebanon, Sunni extremists sent two suicide bombers to destroy the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

The two explosions – one caused by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle, the second by a suicide truck carrying more than 100kg of explosives — killed at least twenty-three people, wounded more than 150, and caused extensive damage to one of Lebanon’s most heavily guarded compounds.

The Guardian reports that the first explosion targeted a convoy arriving at the embassy, which included “cultural attaché” Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ansari (in real life, a high commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards). Al-Ansari was killed in the attack.

Several of those killed in the attack on the convoy, which occurred just outside the embassy’s gate, were guards at the embassy.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigade, the al Qaeda-affiliated Sunni militant group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, making it clear the Syrian war was the motive and demanding that Hezbollah pull out its fighters from Syria.

“The attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut was a twin martyrdom operation by two heroes of the Sunni in Lebanon,” said Sheikh Sirajeddine Zuraiqat, a cleric affiliated with the group.

Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, the Azzam Brigade’s leader, called in August for Sunnis in Lebanon and Syria to unite against Hezbollah, which he described as the “party of Iran.” The group has claimed responsibility for firing rockets at Israel in the past.

Shi’a Iran, and its Lebanese client Hezbollah, have been strong supporters of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Hezbollah, which used to present itself as a defender of Lebanese interests, was pushed by the war in Syria to reveal its true allegiance, which is to Iran’s interests and those of the Shi’a communities in the region.

Syria has disintegrated along ethnic and confessional lines, and Hezbollah’s no-holds-barred support for the Assad regime has pushed Lebanon closer to a similar disintegration.

In the past six month – since Hezbollah began its active involvement in the Syrian civil war – the level of violence between Sunnis and Shi’as in Lebanon has steadily increased.

A similar escalation of violence between Shi’as and Sunnis has been unfolding in Iraq.

The latest moves by the Assad government and Hezbollah are especially worrisome for Sunnis. Since late summer, the pro-Assad forces have been engaged in a broad, and brutal, campaign of ethnic cleansing aiming to force all Sunnis out of the Qalamoun mountains region just east of the Lebanon-Syria border.

The goal of the ethnic cleansing is to expand the areas under Shi’a-Alawite control, thus creating a Sunni-free swath of territory connecting Damascus and the Alawite-control areas in northwest Syria, and the Shi’a-Hezbollah-controlled areas in the Bekaa Valey in northeast Lebanon.