The apparently coordinated blasts – the biggest and deadliest in Tripoli since the end of Lebanon’s own civil war – struck as locals were finishing Friday prayers in the largely Sunni Muslim city. Lebanese officials appealed for calm. The explosions in Tripoli came a week after a huge car bomb killed at least 24 people in a part of Beirut controlled by the Shi’ite Muslim militant movement Hezbollah. Both Hezbollah and radical Sunni groups in Lebanon have sent fighters over the border to support opposing sides in Syria. Salem al-Rafei, chief cleric of the Taqwa mosque, is a staunch supporter of Syrian Sunni rebels as well as Lebanese Sunni militants who have joined the anti-Assad battle in Syria.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/23/us-lebanon-explosion-deaths-idUSBRE97M0FL20130823