Beirut Hotel Blasted by Suicide Bomber Possibly Connected to ISIS
A suicide bomber attacked a hotel in Beirut today, killing one (the bomber) and seriously injuring several others. The Associated Press reports that the bomber detonated on the fourth floor of the hotel while security officers were raiding the building in search of terrorists believed to be connected to ISIS militants.
According to the Wall Street Journal, this is the second suicide bomb in the city this week—a suicide bomber killed himself and a police officer Monday:
The officer, 20, was off duty and had been headed home with a friend to watch the end of Monday night's Brazil-Cameroon soccer match when he noticed a car headed the wrong way and stopped it, a neighbor interviewed by telephone said, citing the man's family. The driver, the bomber, detonated the bomb then.
Lebanese credited the slain officer with stopping the car before it reached its possible targets—a café crowded with World Cup watchers, and a security checkpoint into the Shiite neighborhood.
Police do not believe Monday's attack, however, was at all ISIS-related.
But last week authorities in the Lebanese capital did arrest men apparently connected to the Sunni insurgents. From the Associated Press:
Just over a week ago, authorities in the country announced that they were looking for ISIS cells that had penetrated into Lebanon and were planning to carry out a series of suicide attacks.
On Friday, security forces raided another hotel and arrested 17 men believed to be ISIS members, but didn't find any explosives, Lebanese media reported.
The most recent images of the #explosion that happened in a hotel in #beirut pic.twitter.com/epnW5RwRGg
— رامز القاضي (@ramezelkadi) June 25, 2014
[Image via AP]