Vintage Hizballah on display in two areas: challenging state power with near impunity, and positioning military assets in civilian areas to take as many unwitting human shields with them as possible if they are ever challenged. “‘Hezbollah preventing police from probing Beirut blast’,” from the Jerusalem Post, July 30 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):
Hezbollah security forces prevented Lebanese police from investigating the scene of an explosion Friday overnight which rocked Hezbollah’s headquarters in a south Beirut suburb, DPA reported Saturday.
The blast, which took place inside an apartment on the tenth floor of a building in the the Roueiss neighborhood, killed at least one person and injured another, DPA said.
Immediately after the explosion, the area was blocked off by Hezbollah security forces who. [sic] A Lebanese security source told DPA that Hezbollah forces fired into the air to disperse curious crowds who gathered at the site.
The circumstances behind the blast were unclear, but DPA cited some Lebanese newspapers as saying that a small bomb or hand grenade could have been the cause of the blast.
Lebanese website Lebanon Files also reported that Samir Kuntar, a terrorist previously jailed in Israel, was injured in the explosion. The report could not be confirmed, however it is believed that several Hezbollah members live in the Roueiss neighborhood.