Twin Beirut blasts reveal security lapses: Experts

BEIRUT, Lebanon

Last week’s twin blasts that rocked southern Beirut suggest that Daesh has managed to establish new cells in Lebanon following 18 months of relative security, according to two Lebanese counterterrorism experts.

Daesh quickly claimed responsibility for the twin blasts, which killed at least 43 people and injured another 239 in Beirut’s southern Burg al-Bragna district last Thursday evening.

The district, a Shia Hezbollah stronghold, was similarly targeted in June 2014, when a car bomb went off, killing one person.

Between July 2013 and February 2014, the district was targeted a total of nine times by extremist groups, including both Daesh and the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

"The bombings stopped for a while due to the strict security measures adopted by the Lebanese authorities, which also managed to dismantle a number of terrorist cells," Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA), told Anadolu Agency.

According to Kahwaji, the stepped-up security forced Daesh to establish new cells and find novel ways to detect and exploit weak points.

"There’s a strong possibility that this phase will last until the security apparatus is able to adopt suitable measures and dismantle new cells," the expert added, saying that Lebanon had become a battleground for Daesh after Hezbollah brought the country into the Syria conflict.

Since 2012, Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah group has actively supported the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s ongoing civil war, which is now in its fifth year.

According to Hesham Jaber, head of the Middle East Center for Research and Public Relations and a retired brigadier general in the Lebanese army, last week’s twin blasts showed that Lebanon "remains a target and a battleground for terrorists".

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Jaber said that "two factors" had served to avert terrorist attacks in Lebanon for the past 18 months.

The first of these, he said, was the absence of sectarian speeches promoting violence in public forums.

The second factor, Jaber said, was the efficiency of the Lebanese security apparatus -- "despite the absence of the state and the weakness of the government".

Jaber also agreed with Kahwaji’s assertion that the pattern of bombings in southern Beirut had resumed after a year and a half of relative calm "because terrorist groups have found security lapses they can exploit".