BEIRUT, Aug 4 – A huge explosion near the centre of Beirut killed at least 10 people, injured hundreds and sent shockwaves across the Lebanese capital on Tuesday, shattering windows and causing apartment balconies to collapse, witnesses and security sources said.
The blast occurred in the city’s port area. Lebanon’s interior minister said initial information indicated highly explosive material, seized years ago, that had been stored there had blown up.
Here is a timeline of some bombings in Lebanon since former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated on Feb. 14, 2005 by a truck bomb in Beirut.
Jan. 24, 2018: A bomb blast wounded a member of the Palestinian group Hamas in the Lebanese city of Sidon, destroying his car as he was about to get in.
June 12, 2016: A bomb exploded outside the headquarters of Lebanese Blom Bank in central Beirut, causing damage but no fatalities, the interior minister said.
Nov. 12, 2015: At least 43 people were killed and more than 240 wounded in two suicide bomb blasts claimed by Islamic State in a crowded residential district in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah.
Jan. 2, 2014: A car bomb killed at least five people in Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Shi’ite and Sunni targets in Lebanon.
June 24, 2014: A security officer was killed when a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near a Lebanese army checkpoint in Beirut
Dec 27, 2013: Former Lebanese minister Mohamad Chatah, who opposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was killed in a massive bomb blast which one of his political allies blamed on the Shi’ite Hezbollah militia.
Nov 19, 2013: Two suicide bombings rocked Iran’s embassy compound in Lebanon, killing at least 23 people including an Iranian cultural attache.
Aug 15, 2013: At least 20 people were killed and more than 212 were injured when a car bomb went off near a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut’s Dahia quarter.
July 9, 2013: A massive car bomb ripped through a Beirut stronghold of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group that has been fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war, wounding 53 people.
Oct 19, 2012: A car bomb explosion in Beirut killed a top Lebanese security official whose investigations implicated Syria and Hezbollah in the assassination of al-Hariri in 2005.
Jan 25, 2008: A car bomb killed a police intelligence officer involved in the investigation of assassinations in Lebanon, in an attack in a Christian suburb of Beirut.
Oct. 12, 2007: A suspected car bomb near Beirut killed a senior military officer who was a leading contender to take over as army chief.
June 13, 2007: Anti-Syrian parliamentarian Walid Eido and five other people are killed by a car bomb near a Beirut beach club.
(Compiled by Michael Georgy; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
