khazen.org rejects these attacks - Our prayers with the wounded and families of the affected in the explosion

A powerful car bomb struck the southern Beirut stronghold of Lebanon's Hezbollah group on Thursday, killing 20 people, wounding 120 and trapping many others inside damaged buildings, witnesses and emergency officials said.

The blast, a month after another car bomb wounded more than 50 people in the same district of the Lebanese capital, came amid sectarian tensions over the intervention of Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah against Sunni rebels in Syria's civil war.

A Sunni Islamist group calling itself the Brigades of Aisha claimed responsibility for the attack and promised more operations against Hezbollah. It was not immediately possible to verify the statement, made in an Internet video. [Reuters]

People gather around the site of an explosion in Beirut's southern suburbs, August 15, 2013. Twenty people were killed in the explosion which struck the southern Beirut stronghold of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group on Thursday, a security source said. An army statement said the cause of the explosion was a car bomb. The blast engulfed several vehicles in flames and trapped many people in nearby buildings which were damaged in the explosion. REUTERS/ Hasan Shaaban (LEBANON - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS