Tag Archives: Lebanon

France’s Le Pen cancels meet with Lebanon grand mufti over headscarf

Marine Le Pen, French National Front (FN) political party leader and candidate for the French 2017 presidential elections, stands in front of the logo of the Christian Lebanese Forces party during her meeting with Samir Geagea, leader of the party, in Maarab, north of Beirut, Lebanon February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

By Simon Carraud

BEIRUT (Reuters) – French far-right National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen canceled a meeting on Tuesday with Lebanon’s grand mufti, its top cleric for Sunni Muslims, after refusing to wear a headscarf for the encounter.

Le Pen, among the frontrunners for the presidency, is using a two-day visit to Lebanon to bolster her foreign policy credentials nine weeks from the April 23 first round, and may be partly targeting potential Franco-Lebanese votes.

Many Lebanese fled to France, Lebanon’s former colonial power, during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war and became French citizens.

After meeting Christian President Michel Aoun – her first public handshake with a head of state – and Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Monday, she had been scheduled to meet the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian

He heads the Dar al-Fatwa, the top religious authority for Sunni Muslims in the multireligious country.

“I met the grand mufti of Al-Azhar,” she told reporters, referring to a visit in 2015 to Cairo’s 1,000-year-old center of Islamic learning. “The highest Sunni authority didn’t have this requirement, but it doesn’t matter.

“You can pass on my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” she said.

The cleric’s press office said Le Pen’s aides had been informed beforehand that a headscarf was required for the meeting and had been “surprised by her refusal”.

But it was no surprise in the French political context.

French law bans headscarves in the public service and for high school pupils, in the name of church-state separation and equal rights for women. Le Pen wants to extend this ban to all public places, a measure that would affect Muslims most of all.

HARIRI’S VEILED MESSAGE

Buoyed by the election of President Donald Trump in the United States and by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, Le Pen’s anti-immigration, anti-EU National Front (FN) hopes for similar populist momentum in France.

Like Trump, she has said radical Islamism must be faced head on, although she has toned down her party’s rhetoric to attract more mainstream support and possibly even woo some Muslim voters disillusioned with France’s traditional parties.

After meeting Hariri on Monday, Le Pen went against current French policy in Syria by describing President Bashar al-Assad as the “only viable solution” for preventing Islamic State from taking power in Syria.

Lebanon has some 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

“I explained clearly that … Bashar al-Assad was obviously today a much more reassuring solution for France than Islamic State would be if it came to power in Syria,” she told reporters.

Hariri, whose family has close links to conservative former French President Jacques Chirac and still has a home in France, issued a strongly-worded statement after their meeting.

“The most serious error would be to link Islam and Muslims on the one hand and terrorism on the other,” Hariri said.

“The Lebanese and Arabs, like most of the world, considers that France is the home of human rights and the republican state makes no distinction between citizens on ethnic, religious or class grounds.”

Speaking after meeting French President Francois Hollande in Paris, Walid Jumblatt, the main political leader of the minority Druze community in Lebanon, said Le Pen had “insulted” the Lebanese and Syrian people.

“I hope France will make a better choice than this fascist right. We cannot ask the Lebanese people to forget the crimes of the Syrian regime against it and we cannot return en masse (Syrians) while there is the Syrian regime. It’s a double insult,” he said.

Syria dominated Lebanese government and politics for years and had a military presence in the country until 2005, when it withdrew following the assassination of Saad’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and months of anti-Syria protests.

(Additional reporting by Angus McDowall and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Harsh Hezbollah words aim to draw ‘red lines’ for Trump: source

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs' Leaders Day in Jebshit village, southern Lebanon February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

By Laila Bassam and Angus McDowall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Hezbollah leader’s harsh words for Israel and U.S. President Donald Trump this week were aimed at drawing “red lines” to prevent any threatening action against Lebanon or the group, a source familiar with the group’s thinking said on Friday.

Trump and administration officials have used strong rhetoric against Hezbollah’s political patron Iran and to support its main enemy Israel, including putting Tehran “on notice” over charges it violated a nuclear deal by test-firing a ballistic missile.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday described Trump as being an “idiot”. On Thursday he said that his group, which played a major role in ending Israel’s occupation of Lebanon, could strike its nuclear reactor at Dimona.

The harsh words for Israel and Trump were aimed at drawing “red lines” for the new U.S. administration, the source familiar with the thinking of the Lebanese Shi’ite group said.

“Until now, Hezbollah is not worried about the arrival of Trump into the U.S. administration, but rather, it called him an idiot this week and drew red lines in front of any action that threatens Lebanon or Hezbollah’s presence in Syria,” the source said.

Israel and the United States both regard Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanese politics and maintains an armed militia that has had a significant part in fighting for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, as a terrorist organization.

The group was founded as a resistance movement against Israel’s occupation of the predominantly Shi’ite Muslim south Lebanon which ended in 2000, a role that meant Beirut allowed it to keep its arms after the country’s civil war ended in 1990.

In 2006 Israel launched another war against Hezbollah in south Lebanon but withdrew without forcing the group, which gives allegiance to the supreme leader of Shi’ite Iran, to abandon its weapons.

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun, an ally of Hezbollah, defended the group this week, saying: “As long as the Lebanese army lacks sufficient power to face Israel, we feel the need for (Hezbollah’s) arsenal because it complements the army’s role”.

THREATS

In his speech on Sunday, Nasrallah said: “We are not worried (about Trump), but rather we are very optimistic because when there is an idiot living in the White House, who boasts of his idiocy, it is the beginning of relief for the weak of the world”.

On Thursday he urged Israel to dismantle its nuclear reactor at Dimona. Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal at its Dimona reactor but it refuses to confirm or deny if it is a nuclear power.

“We can turn the threat (of their nuclear capability) into an opportunity,” he said, signaling that Hezbollah could strike the Dimona reactor and other Israeli atomic sites according to the source familiar with Hezbollah thinking.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said in a statement on Thursday: “If Nasrallah dares fire on the Israel’s home front or on its national infrastructure, then all of Lebanon will be hit.”

The source familiar with Hezbollah thinking said that it has been Nasrallah’s policy since the 2006 war with Israel to reveal elements of the group’s military capabilities as part of a policy of deterrence against attack by the Jewish state.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam, writing by Angus McDowall; Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem)

Syrian child refugees struggle to get an education: U.N.

A refugee child receives school supplies and is taught by volunteers

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian refugee children in Lebanon are struggling to get an education and many are being pushed into work or early marriage instead, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said on Monday.

Around 187,000 youngsters – roughly half the school-age Syrian children in the country – are not going to classes, the agency said, as it launched a documentary on their situation.

“Poverty, social exclusion, insecurity and language barriers are preventing Syrian children from getting an education, leaving an entire generation disadvantaged, impoverished and at risk of being pushed into early marriage and child labor,” said UNICEF Lebanon Representative Tanya Chapuisat.

After nearly six years of war, more than half Syria’s people have fled their homes, including more than a million to Lebanon.

One boy in the documentary, 14-year-old Jomaa, told UNICEF he had forgotten how to read or write since dropping school and taking up $2-a-day job.

Mohamad, aged 11, said he had not been to school since arriving in Lebanon four years ago, and his parents had sent him to work.

Abeer, aged 13, said she left Syria six years ago and no longer went to classes because there was no safe transport to take her.

To view the documentary, click here: http://imagineaschool.com/

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Tom Perry and Andrew Heavens)

Syrian child refugees taught to release stress and resist recruitment

Syrian refugee children queue as they head towards their classroom at a school in Mount Lebanon,

By Sally Hayden

BEIRUT (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The screams of a dozen Syrian and Palestinian children pierce the air of a community center in Lebanon’s Shatila refugee camp.

Yet the children are not hurt. They are yelling to express the anger and fear they feel as victims of conflict in special “peace education” classes.

“We don’t hit each other. We don’t say bad things about each other. Boys don’t hit girls,” said 11-year-old Hala, who asked not to be identified for security reasons.

Hala fled Deir el Zor in Syria and has been living in Lebanon for less than two years. She said one of her favorite activities is “playback”, where each child will tell a story or describe a situation that is bothering them and will have the other children act it out.

Organized by Basmeh and Zeitooneh, a local charity, the classes in a chaotic fifth floor room were set up to help children voice their opinions, release the stress caused by war and displacement and rediscover their imaginations, staff say.

They hope by providing children with activities such as painting, dram and storytelling, they will be less vulnerable to recruitment by militant groups preying on children and teenagers who may be out of school with little to occupy them.

“These kids have been through a lot. They’re traumatized in many different ways,” said “peace education” project manager Elio Gharios.

“They’re agitated, maybe introverted, aggressive at times,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Lebanon is home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, half of them children.

In 1949, it opened the Shatila camp in Beirut to host Palestinian refugees fleeing Israel’s founding in 1948.

As a new wave of Syrian refugees joined the ranks of the displaced, Shatila has grown upwards, with some buildings now six floors high. Houses are damp and overcrowded, and the tangled electricity wires that hang across the streets cause multiple deaths a year.

More of an urban slum than a traditional refugee camp, Shatila which covers one square kilometer is home to as many as 42,000 people, according to Rasha Shukr, the Beirut area manager for Basma and Zeitooneh.

Syrian refugee children play as volunteers entertain them inside a housing compound in Sidon, southern Lebanon

Syrian refugee children play as volunteers entertain them inside a housing compound in Sidon, southern Lebanon June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

BRAINWASHING

Gharios, a charismatic 24-year-old Lebanese psychology graduate, said children aged between seven and 14 attend the classes with up to 20 children in each session.

Each class starts with the children deciding on rules for how they can and cannot treat each other.

“They need to know that finding peaceful ways to resolve conflicts is a very important matter … They are reminded every time that violence is not the solution, it’s not the way,” Gharios said.

“They’re young, it is the teenagers who are easiest to brainwash. Many children know how to roll a joint, say, and they’re 12 or 11. Many have witnessed things happen in here where someone would hold a gun against someone else’s head.”

Young Syrian refugees are at particular risk of being recruited by extremist groups in Lebanon and elsewhere because their recent displacement often fuels a sense of hopelessness, says UK-based charity International Alert, which funds projects in Shatila camp, including the classes.

Palestinian groups including Hamas militants and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement are active inside Shatila, according to charities working there.

Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, another extremist group, have also been known to target young refugees online, they say.

International Alert says these classes make children less vulnerable to recruitment because they provide them with a safe environment to discuss problems, learn conflict resolution skills and to rebuild a sense of purpose.

RECRUITMENT

Caroline Brooks, Syria projects manager at International Alert, which supports similar programs throughout Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, said there were many reasons why children may join an extremist group.

Often there is a need for a sense of significance, purpose, and belonging, and sometimes there is a desire for revenge, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A lack of alternatives and the need to make a living are also strong pull factors, Brooks said.

Conflict and displacement tend to fuel the abuse and exploitation of children, refugee experts say.

For example, many children are forced to work or beg to feed themselves and their families, young girls face greater risk of being married off and domestic violence increases, they say.

“Peace education” classes, which started this year, have already had some impact, Brooks said citing a 17-year-old in the program who was approached by an Islamic State recruiter through Facebook.

The teenager immediately reported it to a member of staff involved in the classes.

For Hala, the classes which she has been attending for right months have made a huge difference to her and her younger siblings.

“My brothers changed. They became much happier,” she said.

(Reporting by Sally Hayden; Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)

Eight suicide bombers target Lebanese Christian village

A general view of the Saint Elias church taken in the afternoon, before four suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the church after a series of suicide attacks in the village earlier in the day, in the Christian village of Qaa, Lebanon

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Eight suicide bombers attacked a Lebanese Christian village on Monday, killing five people and wounding dozens more, in the latest violent spillover of the five-year-old Syrian war into Lebanon.

Security sources said they believed Islamic State was responsible for the bombings in the village of Qaa on Lebanon’s border with Syria, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A first wave of attacks involved four suicide bombers who struck after 4 a.m., killing five people, all civilians.

The first bomber blew himself up after being confronted by a resident, with the other three detonating their bombs one after the other as people arrived at the scene. The Lebanese army said four soldiers were among the wounded.

A second series of attacks, involving at least four bombers, took place in the evening as residents were preparing the funerals of those killed earlier. Two of the four bombers blew themselves up outside a church, security sources said. Nobody was killed. Medics put the number of injured at 15.

“It is clear from the pace of explosions that we have entered an episode from hell,” Wael Abu Faour, the health minister, told Reuters.

In comments to local media, the head of the Qaa local council urged residents to stay at home and shoot anyone suspicious. The provincial governor meanwhile imposed a curfew on Syrian refugees in the area.

Lebanese security services have been on heightened alert for militant attacks in recent weeks. Islamic State had urged its followers to launch attacks on “non-believers” during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began in early June.

Lebanon has been repeatedly jolted by militant attacks linked to the war in neighboring Syria, where the powerful Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah is fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday warned of a threat posed by militants based in the border area between Syria and Lebanon, saying they were still preparing car bombs in the area.

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Tom Perry and Laila Bassam; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Hezbollah to send more fighters to Syria’s Aleppo

Hezbollah leader

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said on Friday it will send more fighters to Syria’s Aleppo area, a battleground where it has suffered heavy losses fighting alongside Syrian government forces against insurgent groups.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said thousands of Hezbollah’s Sunni militant foes had recently entered Syria via the Turkish border with the aim of taking over Aleppo and its surrounding countryside.

“We are facing a new wave…of projects of war against Syria which are being waged in northern Syria, particularly in the Aleppo region,” Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast live on the group’s Al Manar TV.

“The defense of Aleppo is the defense of the rest of Syria, it is the defense of Damascus, it is also the defense of Lebanon, and of Iraq,” he said.

“We will increase our presence in Aleppo,” he said. “Retreat is not permissible.”

Shi’ite, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has long supported President Bashar al-Assad against mostly Sunni insurgents.

Aleppo has been a focus of intensified fighting in the months since peace talks in Geneva broke down and a ceasefire deal brokered by Washington and Moscow unraveled. Russia intervened in the five-year-old conflict in September with an air campaign to support Assad.

“It was necessary for us to be in Aleppo … and we will stay in Aleppo,” Nasrallah said.

Aleppo city is split between government and rebel control. Russian and Syrian warplanes have pounded a road leading from the rebel-held areas north towards the Turkish border. That major rebel supply line from Turkey to Aleppo city was effectively cut by government advances earlier this year.

A pro-Damascus source recently told Reuters government forces and their allies are trying to encircle rebels in the Aleppo area. Assad, for whom the recapture of Aleppo would be a strategic prize, has vowed to take back “every inch” of Syria from what he calls terrorists.

Russia’s intervention has helped government forces and their allies advance against insurgents, and separately against Islamic State, in some areas.

But some of those battles have been costly, including around Aleppo.

Islamist insurgents including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in May inflicted heavy losses on a coalition of foreign Shi’ite fighters including Iranians and Hezbollah members south of Aleppo.

Nasrallah said that 26 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in June alone, a rare acknowledgment of the toll their involvement is taking. Several of its senior military commanders have died in the Syrian conflict, alongside hundreds of fighters.

Nasrallah also denied Hezbollah was in imminent fiscal trouble as a result of a U.S. law targeting the group’s finances. The law, passed in December, threatens to bar from the American financial market any bank that knowingly engages with Hezbollah. It has ignited a standoff between Hezbollah, a dominant political force in Lebanon, and the Lebanese central bank.

(The story is refiled to change city to area in lead)

(Reporting by John Davison and Laila Bassam; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Lebanese Ex-Minister Sentenced for Plotting Attacks

Former Lebanese Information Minister Michel Samaha gestures at his house after being released in Beirut, Lebanon, January 14, 2016.

By Angus McDowall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Lebanese military court on Friday increased to nearly 10 years the jail term for a former minister convicted last year of smuggling explosives and planning attacks, in a case that has underscored the country’s sharp political divisions.

Former information minister Michel Samaha, who has close ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was detained in August 2012 and confessed to involvement in a plot for which Damascus’ security chief Ali Mamluk was also indicted.

Syrian officials have denied Damascus was involved, but the allegations exposed rifts in Lebanon, which often break along sectarian lines, over Syria’s long-standing involvement in the country.

Samaha’s initial four-year sentence and later release on bail prompted bitter protests from opponents of Assad, who saw the decisions as unduly lenient and evidence that Damascus and its ally Hezbollah held sway over the justice system.

The case also gained wider regional significance when Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir suggested it was part of the reason Riyadh was withdrawing billions of dollars in aid from Lebanon’s army and security forces.

He said the military court’s granting of bail to Samaha raised questions over the army’s independence from the Shi’ite Hezbollah movement, Lebanon’s main powerbroker and a principle ally of Riyadh’s top regional rival Iran.

On Friday the court set Samaha’s new sentence at 13 years, but in Lebanon a prison year is equivalent to nine months.

“The issuance of the verdict on the terrorist Michel Samaha corrects the former lenient verdict, which we had rejected and declared we would not tolerate,” said former prime minister Saad al-Hariri, a leading critic of Damascus.

Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk, a member of Hariri’s Future Movement, said the new sentence confirmed “the correctness of our trust in the president and members of the court”.

Ashraf Rifi, another Sunni Muslim politician, had resigned his post as justice minister over his granting of bail in January after describing the trial last year as a travesty of justice.

Syria is Lebanon’s largest neighbor and dominated the country from the end of its civil war in 1990 until 2005, when U.S.-led pressure helped force Syrian troops to leave.

Its ally Hezbollah remains Lebanon’s main power broker and has fought alongside government forces in Syria’s civil war.

Hezbollah and its leading members made no immediate comment on Friday’s sentence.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam and Angus McDowall; editing by John Stonestreet)

Lebanese military gets U.S., British aid for defending border with Syria

US Helicopters in Lebanon

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s armed forces acquired three U.S. helicopters worth $26 million on Thursday to help in efforts to stop Syria’s civil war spilling over its border, along with almost $29 million of British aid as EU countries also step up their support.

The Lebanese armed forces have now received a total of nine Huey II multi-mission helicopters from the United States as part of $1.3 billion in security assistance given since 2004, U.S. interim Ambassador Richard H. Jones said.

“We have no plans to slow down or alter that level of support,” Jones said at Beirut’s military air base.

Fighting between Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front militants often overlaps Lebanon’s mountainous northern border with Syria, where a civil war is now in its fifth year.

Fighters briefly overran the northern Lebanese town of Arsal in 2014 before withdrawing to the hills after clashes with the army. Fighting in the border area killed at least 32 Nusra and Islamic State fighters this week.

The helicopters will improve the army’s ability to quickly reinforce “remote areas of tension along the border in support of the army’s fight against terrorists”, Jones said.

Lebanon has a weak government and a number of nations support its armed forces, concerned that regional conflict and a power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia could again destabilise a country which emerged from its own civil war 26 years ago.

On a visit to Lebanon on Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond announced a further $22 million for border guard training through to 2019 and $6.5 million for general training of 5,000 Lebanese troops. “Lebanon is an important part of the front line against terrorism,” Hammond said.

“We are delighted by the way the UK support is being translated into strengthened border security and is enabling the armed forces to take the fight to Daesh and keep Lebanon safe from the incursions of Daesh,” he said, referring to Islamic State.

EU foreign policy head Federica Mogherini, who visited Lebanon last week, said that Lebanon’s security was important for Europe’s safety too and the EU was willing to expand its support for the Lebanese armed forces.

In February Saudi Arabia suspended a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese army in what an official called a response to Beirut’s failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

Lebanon’s Iranian-backed group Hezbollah is also a significant military presence in the country, with extensive combat experience. It fought Israel in an inconclusive 2006 war and is supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Issam Abdallah; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Beirut Citizens Feel Overshadowed By Paris Attacks

On November 12th, a day before the French attacks, two suicide bombers  killed 43 people and wounded 239 more in the Lebanese capital in an ISIS-propagated murder. On the night of Friday the 13th, in Paris, at least 129 people  were killed and over 350 wounded by at least seven ISIS-connected assailants at a stadium, concert hall and in restaurants.

The Beirut bombings were the worst since Beirut’s civil war ended in 1990.  The attack was also claimed by ISIS or the Islamic State and took place in a neighborhood that was a stronghold for Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria on behalf of President Bashar Assad.

The latest deadly attacks by ISIS on Paris are drawing millions of mourners from around the world, but some say it is overshadowing other ISIS attacks worthy of global attention.

“When my people died, no country bothered to light up its landmarks in the colors of their flag,” Elie Fares, a Lebanese doctor, wrote on his blog.

“When my people died, they did not send the world into mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant fleck along the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts of the world.”

Social media also reflected the unfairness that many were feeling on the coverage of these tragic events, with many wondering where the prayers and flags were for the Lebanese people.

Although, there was outrage among some people, others believed it was due to the ongoing conflict in areas around Lebanon and the rarity of such incidents in Paris that led to the one-sided flood of support.

“In Lebanon we experience war and its consequences more than French people do,” Lebanese journalist Doja Daoud told Al Jazeera. “This is a humanitarian thing, the same terrorism that kills Lebanese people, Iraqis and Syrians, killed the French.”

ISIS Claims Twin Suicide Attacks in Lebanon and Threatens Russia in Latest Video

ISIS claimed to launch one of the deadliest attacks in recent years in Lebanon Thursday evening, when a double suicide bombing killed at least 43 people and wounded over 200 others in a southern Beirut suburb.

ABC News reports that the suburb is a stronghold for Hezbollah, a militant Shiite group. ISIS has mostly been targeting Syria and Iraq and has not recognized any affiliate in Lebanon thus far. However, Lebanon has seen deadly situations due to the civil war in the neighboring country.

The bombs were detonated only minutes apart during rush hour in the Hezbollah stronghold. Ambulances rushed to the scene and Lebanese military, paired with Hezbollah gunmen, would not allow anyone to enter the area. Hezbollah has asked for people to disperse and leave public areas as well as be on the lookout for suspicious actions.

“There’s a lot of shattered glass on the street, a lot of blood, and it’s really just a scene of chaos and carnage,” journalist Tamara Qiblawi told CNN shortly after the blasts.

After the attack, ISIS members posted on various social media outlets that they carried out the attacks.

Hezbollah has been fighting alongside Syrian government forces led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The suburb has been attacked in the past and Sunni militant groups continue to threaten the stronghold, according to ABC News.

Lebanese security officials told Fox News that the first attacker detonated the bomb inside a mosque then shortly after, the second attack was carried out in a bakery located nearby. A third attacker was found dead, close to the second explosion. His vest was still intact.

According to CNN, another would-be attacker who survived the bombing was found. Lebanese officials state that he was an ISIS recruit. He has been taken into custody and told authorities that he, and the other attackers arrived in Lebanon from Syria two days ago.

A national day of mourning was declared by Lebanon Prime Minister Tammam Salam. He called for Lebanon’s Parliament to stop their arguments and to begin functioning again. In fact, the government in Lebanon has been so disjointed that there is currently a trash crisis.

“I pray that this tragedy is enough to wake up politicians so that they can put their differences aside so we can protect the country,” Salam said in a statement, according to the Washington Post.

In addition to Thursday’s attacks, ISIS also released a new video on Thursday, threatening to attack Russia for revenge on the recent series of Russian airstrikes in Syria. The militant in the video stated in Russian: “Soon, very soon, the blood will spill like an ocean.”

Russian state security services are analyzing the video, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“I do not know the authenticity of this video, I do not know the authenticity of these sources, but in any case no doubt this will be material for review by our special (security) services,” Peskov told journalists on a conference call, according to Business Insider.

USA Today reports another suicide bombing took place Friday at a Baghdad memorial service for a Shiite fighter. At least 22 have been reported dead and at least 43 are wounded. At this time, ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but they are well known for targeting large Shiite gatherings. The radical Sunni group believes that Shiites are apostates who have strayed from Islam.