Islamic State’s Beirut Attack Has Exposed Lebanon’s Perilous Fragility

Lebanon’s political gridlock obstructs a solution to the country’s terrible problems, and ISIS seeks to destabilize the situation further.

Relatives and friends of Hezbollah member Adel Termos, who was killed in Thursday's twin suicide bombings, mourn during his funeral procession in the southern Lebanese village of Tallousa, Lebanon, on Nov. 13, 2015. AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari

Little more than a day before the Paris bomb and gun attacks, Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings in Beirut that killed 44 people.

While international media focused on Paris, what coverage there was of the Beirut atrocity described it as an attack on a “Hezbollah stronghold.” This is something of a misinterpretation; the attack wasn’t merely a strike by one terrorist organization against another, but also an indiscriminate bombing designed to cause maximum civilian fatalities. In fact, this was the deadliest attack since the end of Lebanon’s civil war—which led to 144,000 deaths—in 1990.

In its statement of responsibility, ISIS said that the Beirut attack was a sectarian strike, intended to kill Shiites.