Light on details:NOW UPDATED!
WP — Lebanese security officials say 2 explosions rock northern city of Tripoli.ABC -The officials say the blasts went off near mosques in the city on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer when mosques would be packed.Reuters-Two explosions rocked Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli on Friday, causing casualties, witnesses and security sources said.One blast was outside a mosque as Friday prayers ended. The other hit central Tripoli.
SANA- Lebanon's national news agency: Two explosions heard in Tripoli and clouds of smoke cover the city
UPDATE BEGINS! Car bombs at Lebanon mosques kill 27 Powerful car bombs have exploded outside two Sunni Muslim mosques in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing at least 27 people and wounding 352.
"Up to now, there are 27 martyrs and 352 wounded in hospitals," Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said on television, without saying whether this was the final toll.
Both explosions took place as worshippers were filing out after weekly Muslim prayers on Friday, in a city where Sunni supporters of rebels in neighbouring Syria frequently clash with Alawites, who support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.The first blast hit in the city centre and was also near the home of outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati, although his office said he was not in Tripoli at the time.The second struck near the port of the restive city with a Sunni majority, close to the home of former police chief Ashraf Rifi, a security source said. The explosions come a week after a suicide car bombing killed 27 people in a Beirut stronghold of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside Assad's forces.On Wednesday, army chief General Jean Kahwaji said his forces were fighting a "total war" against terrorism whose aim is "to provoke sectarian strife" in the country.
Divide to conquer. That certainly would not, in any way serve the Lebanese people.
He said the army had been pursuing a "terrorist cell that prepares car bombs and sends them to residential neighbourhoods."He said "the gravity ... lies in the fact that this cell is not targeting any one region or community in particular, but that it aims to provoke sectarian strife by targeting different regions," said Kahwaji.
Provoking sectarian strife. Who would that benefit?