(TRIPOLI, LEBANON) — At least nine people were killed in an explosion on Saturday that rocked a cafe in Tripoli’s Jabal Mohsen neighborhood in north Lebanon, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.
George Kitane, the head of paramedics at the Lebanese Red Cross, told al-Jadeed that the attack killed nine people and wounded 36.
A Lebanese army statement said a single suicide bomber attacked a coffee shop at around 7:30 p.m. (1730 GMT, 12:30 p.m. EST). It said military police would investigate the bombing.
Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to talk to journalists, earlier said the attack began with a grenade tossed inside the cafe, followed by a single suicide bomber.
Tripoli has been relatively quiet recently after years of tension between its majority Sunni population and its Alawite minority. Embattled President Bashar Assad in neighboring Syria is an Alawite and support for him in Tripoli has sparked violence there before. Most of the Sunnis in Tripoli support the predominantly Sunni Syrian rebels trying to overthrow Assad.
Lebanon has seen a series of attacks and suicide bombings since the conflict in Syria, which has killed more than 200,000 people, began nearly four years ago. Saturday’s attack was among the deadliest to hit the country in the past year.
Health Minister Wael Abu Faour called for unity in Lebanon, telling al-Jadeed: “This is the moment for consensus among Lebanese to protect Lebanon.”
Former Lebanese president Michel Sleiman also condemned the attack and said “terrorism will fail in dragging Tripoli into a civil strife.”
Security sources said the bombers were both Lebanese, from the mainly Sunni Mankubeen district, which lies just 500 meters from Jabal Mohsen.
“According to the military experts’ initial investigations at the scene of the explosion that hit Jabal Mohsen, the two suicide attackers’ names are Taha Samir al-Khayal and Bilal Mohammad al-Maraiyan,” an army statement said.
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