REPORT: New leads in Iranian embassy attack case revealed

Security sources reported that, upon the request of the State commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr, a unit from the Lebanese Armed Forces Intelligence headed Wednesday evening to the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel in Beirut, where the suicide bombers were claimed to have been staying.    

The sources told LBCI that the LAF unit searched one hotel room and confiscated the belongings of two persons, adding that the hotel’s administration provided the investigators with all the needed files and footages from surveillance cameras. The same sources said that the bombers stayed at the hotel for four days and used forged Lebanese identities.

A double suicide attack targeted on Tuesday, November 19 the Iranian embassy in south Beirut’s Bir el-Hassan region, killing at least 23 people, wounding 146 and damaging buildings in the embassy compound.

Live footage from local news channels showed charred bodies on the ground as flames rose from the remains of several vehicles. Aid workers and residents carried away some of the victims on blankets.

Caretaker Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil stated that the Cultural Attache of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sheikh Ibrahim Ansari was killed in the blasts. Ansari took his post in Lebanon a month ago and was overseeing all regional cultural activities.

The Abdullah Azzam brigades, a Lebanon-based al Qaeda affiliate, said it was behind a double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy.