A gunman opened fire on the US embassy in the Lebanese capital on Wednesday, wounding a security guard before he was wounded in return fire and detained, Lebanese military and embassy officials said.
The gunman's motive remains unclear, but the attack, which took place at 8:34 a.m. local time according to an embassy statement, comes amid widespread popular anger here over US support for the current Israel's campaign in Gaza.
Tensions have also risen along Lebanon's southern border with Israel, where Israeli troops and forces from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah have exchanged fire for months in an escalating tit-for-tat fight.
The Lebanese army said the gunman, a Syrian national living in the Lebanese border town of Majdal Anjar, was detained and taken to a hospital for investigation.
The military said it also arrested three relatives of the gunman, along with a Syrian national and a Lebanese national.
The embassy said in its statement that “small arms fire was reported in the vicinity” of the embassy entrance.
“Thanks to the quick reaction of the host country's security forces and our embassy security team, our facilities and equipment are safe,” the statement said. An embassy spokesman said an embassy guard was injured in the attack.
“Investigations are ongoing and we are in close contact with host country authorities,” the statement said.
He added that appointments for Wednesday were cancelled, but that the embassy would resume operations the next day.
Videos posted on social media showed a masked gunman armed with an assault rifle, wearing jeans, a combat vest and helmet, leaving a parking lot outside the entrance to the US embassy. The Los Angeles Times could not confirm the veracity of the videos, but the places depicted in them correspond to the embassy.
Walking towards the entrance on the other side of the street, the man fires successive shots. Another video shows him opening fire again before an army jeep rushes towards him.
The gunman then runs into a side street; In the ensuing firefight, which local media reported lasted more than half an hour, he continues to evade return fire.
Images purportedly showing the wounded gunman, published in local media, showed that he suffered injuries to his leg and stomach. His vest bears the logo of the Islamic State, the ultraviolent extremist group that was largely defeated in 2019 after a years-long international campaign led by the United States.
Some local media channels quoted the gunman as saying the attack was carried out in the name of Gaza. There was no confirmation from official sources.
Lebanon's usually fractious political class united in condemning the attack, while observers expressed hope that the shooting was not a harbinger of a broader conflagration between Hezbollah and Israel.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began, anger against the United States has soared across the region, including in Lebanon, where protests against the U.S. embassy occurred in October, as well as demonstrations outside diplomatic missions of countries seen as supporters. From Israel. The country is home to some 270,000 Palestinian refugees and approximately 1 million refugees from the civil war in neighboring Syria.
The US embassy sits on a hillside in a Christian-dominated neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital. Its current site opened after 1983, when a deadly bomb attack hit the embassy building on Beirut's waterfront and killed 63 people. Washington blamed Hezbollah for the attack and for a subsequent suicide attack at the current site in 1984, which killed 23 people.
