Dozens dead in Beirut suicide blasts

Lebanese army and civilians gather near the site of a twin suicide attack in Burj al-Barajneh, southern Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015 that struck a Shiite suburb killed and wounded dozens, a Lebanese official said. (Bilal Hussein/AP)

BEIRUT -- Twin suicide bombings that struck southern Beirut on Thursday killed dozens of people and wounded more than 100, officials said, raising fears of a return to attacks by Sunni militants that had repeatedly targeted the Lebanese capital more than a year ago.
The attackers hit an area of the city where many loyalists of the powerful Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia live. On Twitter, Lebanon’s Red Cross put the death toll at 37, with 181 wounded.
There were no immediate assertions of responsibility. But such attacks in the past have been carried by Sunni militants angered by Hezbollah’s unilateral decision to fight alongside government forces against rebels in the Syrian civil war.
The bombings stopped about a year and a half ago following a Hezbollah offensive along the Syria-Lebanon border that snuffed out the militants who had been directing attacks in the capital.
The lull in bombings also resulted from greater cooperation between Hezbollah and Lebanon’s Sunni politicians.