Blasts kill 27 in northern Lebanon

Twentyseven people were killed and 352 others wounded Friday in a pair of explosions near Sunni Muslim mosques in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanese Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said.

The blasts, which coincided with Friday prayers, were probably caused by car bombs, military sources told Efe.

The first explosion came at the alTaqwa mosque in the center of Tripoli, followed minutes later by another blast outside the alSalam mosque, near the city’s port.

Both mosques are led by Salafist imams with ties to rebels in neighboring Syria.

Neither imam was hurt in Friday’s attacks.

The alSalam mosque is close to the private residences of Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, and Ashraf Rifi, a former chief of Lebanese internal security.

Tripoli, the largest city in northern Lebanon, is majority Sunni, and has been the scene in recent months of sectarian attacks on Shi’ite and Alawi Muslims.

The bombings in the north came just over a week after a carbomb attack left 27 people dead and 336 injured in a Beirut neighborhood that is a stronghold of the Shi’ite Hezbollah movement.