DHAKA: A powerful explosion has rocked a southern suburb of Beirut, sending smoke rising from the stronghold of the armed Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah.

Sources told Al Jazeera that there were at least two casualties caused by Thursday’s blast in the Lebanese capital, which has been hit by a series of bombs in recent months.

‘This is in the heart of the Hezbollah stronghold,’ Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut, said, ‘This is a very busy area, commercial and residential’.

BDST: 2045 HRS, JAN 02, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor