Six arrested after Beirut bombings, death toll climbs to 43

Five Syrians and a Palestinian have been arrested in connection with the twin suicide bombings in central Beirut on Thursday that killed 43 people, reports said.

The explosions in a busy area of a southern Beirut suburb, a stronghold of Lebanese movement Hezbollah, were claimed by Islamic State. The groups claimed the attacks were in revenge for Hezbollah’s decision to send thousands of fighters into neighbouring Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against a Sunni-dominated uprising.

Police said the explosions were carried out by two men wearing suicide vests in front of a shopping centre.

The blast was the first to target Beirut’s southern suburbs since June 2014, when a suicide car bomb killed a security officer who had tried to stop the bomber. However, prior to that, a string of attacks had targeted Hezbollah strongholds throughout the country, and between July 2013 and February 2014, there were nine attacks on Hezbollah bastions, most claimed by Sunni extremists

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Syrian and Lebanese detainees were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the bombings, which he squarely blamed on Islamic State.

Nasrallah warned his followers of a backlash against ordinary Syrians and Palestinians in the aftermath of the bombings, saying the goal of radical Islamist Sunni fundamentalists, who consider Shi'ites to be heretics, was to sow discord among Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Nasrallah condemned the Paris attacks, saying the region which was reeling under the "earthquake of Daesh [ISIS] barbarity" felt more than any others the pain the French people were now experiencing.

Islamic State said in a statement posted online by its supporters that its members blew up a bike loaded with explosives in Borj al-Barajneh and that when onlookers gathered, a suicide bomber blew himself up among them. The group said the attacks killed 40 people.