Lebanese cafe targeted in suicide attack

Last weekend a bomb blast claimed the lives of seven people and wounded dozens other in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, many press associations report.

The planned attack occurred in the Jabal Mohsen district of the historic city, a predominantly Alawite area, and targeted a coffee shop during peak evening trading hours.

Sadly, it is believed to have been premeditated and driven by religious sectarianism.

“At around 7:30pm, a suicide attacker struck a café in Jabal Mohsen, killing and wounding several citizens,” a statement from the Lebanese army read.

The state-run National News Agency claimed that nine were killed, with thirty-five injured. However this number has been disputed as, though spokesperson George Kitane, the Lebanese Red Cross told a private broadcast station that seven people had lost their lives and a further thirty-six had been wounded in the blast.

ABC report – via the way of anonymous security officials – that the assault began with grenade being thrown inside the café, followed by a solitary suicide bomber attack.

A group linked to the al Nusra Front, who have themselves connections to al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the bombing, doing so via a message on Twitter. They said that the attack was motivated by “the killing of Sunni Muslims in Syria and Lebanon.”

The Middle-Eastern country has been subjected to a number of similar incidents since the conflict in Syria began nearly four years ago. Tripoli had, however, been relatively quiet in recent months after long-standing tensions between the Sunni majority and the Alawite minority had appeared to have calmed somewhat.

Lebanese security forces since conducted a raid on a prison after initial investigations to the coffee shop bombing discovered that some inmates at the high security Roumieh prison were connected to the suicide attack.

Nohad Machnouk, the country’s interior minister, has since said that intercepted telephone calls provided evidence that some of those behind bars were, in some way, linked and had used mobile phones and Skype to communicate with fellow militants.

photo: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center