When all else fails, and/or when the president is caught in yet another major scandal [11], there is only one way out: war. As many expected, but as nobody knew what shape the latest provocation would take, overnight at least 23 were killed and dozens hurt after a twin bomb attack shook the Iranian embassy in Beirut. As NBC reports [12], a local al Qaeda affiliate, the Abdullah Azzam brigades, claimed responsibility for the explosions – the latest sign that Syria’s civil war is spilling over the border into Lebanon. Burning cars, bodies and pools of blood littered the front of the embassy building, in the Hezbollah-dominated south of the city. The Zahraa hospital nearby told AFP that it had received the bodies of five people and was treating at least 35 others for wounds. Lebanese media broadcast harrowing images from the scene of the blast, with charred bodies on a street lined by blazing cars and strewn with the rubble.
The horrifying scene looked something like out of Beirut in the 1980s:
Burning cars, bodies and pools of blood littered the front of the embassy building, in the Hezbollah-dominated south of the city.
Eyewitnesses described charred bodies and a large crater.
Security camera footage indicated the first blast was carried out by suicide bomber who rushed toward the walls of the embassy, while the second was caused by a nearby car bomb, officials told Lebanese media.
One explosion blew out the large black main gate of the Iranian mission, damaging the three-story facility, Reuters said.
Lebanon's Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil told Reuters that at least 23 people were killed and 146 wounded, but the toll was changing rapidly as emergency workers and bystanders picked through the wreckage of burning vehicles.
"At one entrance of the Iranian embassy I counted six bodies outside. I saw body parts around and thrown two streets away," Reuters television cameraman Issam Abdullah said from the scene.
"There is huge damage, it looks like it is a car bomb. One car is twisted there. There were two Mercedes cars badly damaged," he added.
Activist Ahmad Yassine posted pictures of the aftermath of the explosion to Twitter, showing burning vehicles and bystanders picking through the wreckage.
The area is home to a number of foreign embassies, including those of Egypt, Kuwait and China.
And while Al Qaeda was quick to take the blame, Iran had other thoughts, and its foreign ministry promptly accused Israel [13]of carrying out the deadly attack.
In other words, the CIA-funded Al-Qaeda groups originally in Syria, are now operating in neighboring countries where they are blowing up Israel's enemies at Netanyahu's bidding, while taking responsibility and keeping the spotlight away from the Israeli state. What can possibly go wrong with such a strategy clearly designed to push the middle east back to the brink of war?