Lebanese Leaders Condemn Bourj al-Barajneh Blasts, Urge Unity

Lebanese leaders strongly condemned Thursday the deadly twin bombings that rocked the Beirut southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh, urging unity and vigilance.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam declared Friday a day of national mourning and called on all Lebanese to show more “alert, unity and solidarity in the face of the seditious schemes.”

He hoped the attacks will push all officials to “overcome disputes and support state and security institutions so that we can all protect our domestic front and immunize it in the face of the terrorist assault.”

Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun meanwhile described the attacks as “a crime of despair after defeat.”

“We must fight with all due confidence so that good can triumph over evil,” he told OTV.

Calling for “preserving security,” Aoun added: “How many more blasts must happen to convince everyone of the need to eradicate takfiri terrorism?”

Meanwhile, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea issued a statement condemning the blasts “in the strongest terms” and urging Lebanese to close ranks.

He also called on the government to “hold an emergency and extraordinary meeting in order to take more measures aimed at protecting Lebanon and the Lebanese.”

For his part, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat condemned the attack and called for “rising above narrow and partisan political disputes in order to immunize the Lebanese arena and prevent a new wave of terrorist bombings.”

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan meanwhile issued a statement condemning the attack as “black terrorism” and urging “Islamic unity and national unity.”

“The domestic arena must be protected with further awareness, solidarity and unity,” he said.

The March 14 General Secretariat meanwhile condemned “the return of the bombings to the Dahieh region,” voicing its solidarity with the families of the victims.

The general secretariat also noted that “stability in Lebanon is not merely a technical process based on the ability of a security force to protect its regions, but rather on consensus on the need to build the State, in the vein of what happened today in parliament.”

It also called on Hizbullah to “withdraw from the Syrian conflict, which is clearly firing back at those who are involved in it.”

The twin attack, which killed 43 people and injured 239 others, was carried out by two suicide bombers who blew up their explosive vests in the Ain al-Sikkeh street. The army said the dead body of a third attacker who failed to blow himself up was found on the scene of the second blast.

The blast, which was claimed by the extremist Islamic State group, is the first to target Beirut's southern suburbs since June 2014, when a suicide car bomb killed a General Security officer who had tried to stop the bomber.

But prior to that, a string of attacks targeted Hizbullah strongholds throughout the country.

Between July 2013 and February 2014, there were nine attacks on Hizbullah bastions, most claimed by jihadist extremists.

The groups claimed the attacks were in revenge for Hizbullah's decision to send thousands of fighters into neighboring Syria to support President Bashar Assad's forces against an Islamist-dominated uprising.

Y.R.