Blasts at Iranian embassy kill 23

Lebanese-based group connected to al-Qaida claims responsibility

Two explosions, at least one caused by a suicide bomber, rocked Iran's embassy in Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people, including an Iranian cultural attache, and hurling bodies, cars and debris across the street.

Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Ghadnfar Roknabadi confirmed the killing of the embassy's cultural attache Sheikh Ibrahim Al Ansari in the twin explosions that rocked the southern suburbs of Beirut.

A Lebanese-based al-Qaida-linked group known as the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for what it described as a double suicide attack on the Iranian mission in southern Beirut.

Lebanon has suffered a series of bomb attacks and clashes linked to the two-and-half-year-old conflict in neighboring Syria.

Security camera footage showed a man in an explosives belt rushing toward the outer wall of the embassy before blowing himself up, Lebanese officials said. They said the second explosion was caused by a car bomb parked two buildings away from the compound.

In a Twitter post, Sheikh Sirajeddine Zuraiqat, the religious guide of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, said the group had carried out the attack. "It was a double martyrdom operation by two of the Sunni heroes of Lebanon," he wrote.

Shiite Iran actively supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against Sunni Muslim rebels, who are backed and armed by Sunni powers Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Syrian rebel groups, some linked to al-Qaida, have threatened to take their battle from Syria to Lebanon in response to the military involvement of Iran and its Lebanese Shiite guerrilla ally Hezbollah alongside Assad's forces.

Lebanon's Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said 23 people had been killed and 146 wounded.

"At one entrance of the Iranian embassy I counted six bodies outside," Reuters television cameraman Issam Abdullah said. "I saw body parts ... thrown two streets away. There is huge damage."

The embassy's sturdy metal gate was twisted by the blasts.

Fires engulfed cars outside the embassy and the facades of some buildings were torn off. Carpets of shattered glass from nearby buildings covered the bloodied streets and some trees were uprooted, but the embassy's well-fortified building suffered relatively minor damage.

Retaliatory attack

Soldiers in camouflage, firefighters and paramedics all rushed to the scene to evacuate the wounded.

The attack followed car bombings in Sunni and Shiite Muslim strongholds in Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli in August, in which at least 66 people were killed.

Iranian ambassador Roknabadi did not say whether other embassy officials were among the dead, but Lebanese televisions quoted Iranian diplomatic sources as saying none of their staff inside the embassy was hurt.

Footage from local news channels showed charred bodies on the ground as flames rose from stricken vehicles. Emergency workers and residents carried victims away in blankets.

Hezbollah official Ali Ammar said the attack would not deter the group, known by its supporters as the "resistance".

"Whoever did this is a monstrous terrorist," he said. "The resistance message is that it will continue. It will continue in all its efforts to defeat Israel and defeat the terrorists."

Shiite Iran has been bankrolling Assad's fight against the mainly Sunni rebels and has given military support to the president's forces. It also supports Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, was hit by three explosions earlier this year. Those attacks were blamed on groups linked to the Syrian rebels, believed to be in retaliation for the group's involvement in Syria's civil war.

Hezbollah fighters have played a crucial combat role for Assad in several battles, but their involvement has increased sectarian tension in Syria and in Lebanon.

Reuters-Xinhua