At least 22 people are dead in twin bomb blasts at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, in an attack linked to the civil war going on across the border in Syria.  The Iranian ambassador escaped harm, but a cultural attache is among the dead.

Burning cars, bodies, and pools of blood littered the front of the embassy building, which sustained a lot of damage.  Security camera footage indicated a suicide bomber rushed toward the walls of the embassy, detonating the first blast.  A car bomb placed near the embassy exploded after that.

The Sunni jihadist group Abdullah Azzam Brigades said it was behind the attack on the Shi’a nation’s embassy.  Iran is a major backer of the Lebanese Shi’a militant group Hezbollah, which has sent fighters to Syria to back the government of Bashar al-Assad, which condemned the attack.

 “The aim of the blast is to stir up the situation in Lebanon and use the Lebanese arena to convey messages,” said Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who called the act “a cowardly terrorist act.”