A pair of suicide bombings killed at least 41 people and wounded over 200 more Thursday evening in southern Beirut, Lebanese Health Minister Wael Abu Faour said.
The state-run National News Agency reported that two suicide bombers blew themselves up within 150 meters (490 feet) and five minutes of each other, shaking the Bourj al-Barajneh district in southern Beirut.
It was not immediately clear where the attackers came from or what their motivation was.
But in a purported statement circulated online by ISIS supporters on social media, ISIS claimed responsibility for the blasts. CNN hasn’t confirmed the authenticity of the statement.
Three local members of Hezbollah were among those killed in the attack, a Lebanese security source said. The members do not appear to have been a target in the attack and were in “the wrong place at the wrong time,” the source said.
In addition to the human toll, the explosions damaged at least four nearby buildings. Video distributed by Reuters showed a dramatic scene in the bombings’ aftermath, with rescue workers carrying out victims past piles of rubble and through a mass of people.
After the blasts, authorities closed all entrances to Bourj al-Barajneh, NNA reported. Judge Sakr Sakr dispatched military police and other authorities to investigate the blasts, cordoning off the area around them.
Citizens have been urged to stay away from the bloody scene as well as nearby hospitals so that ambulances can more easily get back and forth.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam declared Friday a day of mourning for the victims of the bombings, a terrorist attack condemned by officials across the country’s political landscape.
Bombings not new to Lebanon
ISIS, which does not have a large presence in Lebanon, claimed responsibility for a car bombing in the capital last year.
The country has seen plenty of violence involving numerous parties in recent decades, including the current fallout from the bloody civil war in neighboring Syria.
That war has flooded Lebanon with more than a million refugees, according to the United Nations, and also contributed to intermittent spillover violence.
Most of that bloodshed has been concentrated near the Syrian border, though not all, as evidenced by a November 2013 Beirut bombing that killed at least 23 people and wounded about 150 more.
The al Qaeda-linked militant group Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for that bombing and warned of more to come unless the Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah stops sending fighters to support Syrian government forces.