IS claims responsibility for bomb attacks that killed and wounded scores in Beirut

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a double suicide bomb attacks on a Hizbullah stronghold in Southern Beirut earlier today that killed 37 people.

According to a statement posted on Twitter by its supporters that its members blew up a bike loaded with explosives in a street in the Borj al-Barajneh area, and when people gathered after the blast, a suicide bomber blew himself up among them.

More than 181 people were wounded in the blasts in a crowded district in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The blasts occurred almost simultaneously and struck a Shia community centre and a nearby bakery in the commercial and residential area, security sources said.

The blasts were close to a Hizbullah-run hospital.

The bombings were the first attacks for more than a year in a stronghold of the Iran-backed Shia movement, which has sent members to Syria to fight alongside president Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the country’s civil war.

Several bomb blasts struck Lebanon in June last year, in a spillover of violence linked to Syria.

The war in Lebanon’s larger neighbour, with which it shares a border of more than 300km, has ignited sectarian strife in the country, leading to bombings and fighting between supporters of the opposing sides in Syria.

Hizbullah supports Mr Assad; Sunni Islamists support rebels fighting against the president and his Shia backers.

Lebanon’s interior minister Nouhad Machnouk gave the latest death toll.

He also said a third suicide bomber had been killed by one of the explosions before he could detonate his own bomb. His body was found nearby.

Medics rushed to treat the wounded after the explosions, which damaged shopfronts and left the street stained with blood and littered with broken glass.

It was a blow to Hizbullah’s tight security measures in the area, which were strengthened following bombings last year.

The army had also set up checkpoints across the southern suburb entrances.