Army Intelligence Analyzes Iranian Embassy Security Cameras Data
The Lebanese Army Intelligence was on Thursday analyzing the tapes of security cameras that the Iranian embassy had handed it over after the twin suicide bombings that targeted the mission in Beirut's southern suburbs.
The probe was ongoing under the supervision of the military prosecutor Judge Saqr Saqr.
Al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted high-ranking security sources as saying that the Army Intelligence is seeking to identify the suicide bombers as a first lead as to who stood behind Tuesday's blasts that left at least 23 people dead in the neighborhood of Bir Hassan.
The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks that have struck Hizbullah strongholds.
An al-Qaida-linked militant group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack — the deadliest targeting Iranian interests since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in March 2013.
Iran has been a staunch supporter of Assad's government, and the Iranian-backed Hizbullah has been instrumental in helping his troops flush out insurgents from key areas near the Lebanese border.
Al-Akhbar daily said Thursday that the suicide bombers had been in Beirut only a few days before the blast. They stayed at the Sheraton Four Points hotel in the neighborhood of Verdun with fake Lebanese IDs.
Investigators lifted their finger prints from their hotel rooms and got copies of the identity cards they used, it said.
The newspaper added that the army also began analyzing the hotel's security cameras.
An eyewitness at the hotel said that the two men were not Lebanese and they neither had a Gulf nor a Syrian accent, security sources told LBCI TV.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Hizbullah supporters chanted "Death to America, Israel and the takfiris!" as they mourned four of the blasts' victims, in the Ghobeiri district.
Women wept as Hizbullah pallbearers carried the coffins of the four victims, including Radwan Fares, a Lebanese who headed the Iranian Embassy's security. Women threw flower petals and rice from balconies at the coffins below, wrapped in yellow Hizbullah flags.
"At your service Hizbullah," shouted the men on the streets, fists thrusting in a rhythmic salute.
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