Reactions to Iranian embassy bombing in Beirut
Many of the tweets in the wake of Tuesday’s bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut that left 23 dead were prayers, representing the sectarian divide between some Sunni Islamists and Shia in the region.

One Twitter user, whose profile picture featured the black and white flag associated with Salafi jihadism (radical Sunni Islamism), tweeted a prayer for the attackers:

[“Dear God, accept those who undertook this blessed invasion. #Invasion of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut.”]

Iran is the most powerful Shia state while many other Middle Eastern countries have significant Shia populations, often repressed by Sunni-dominated regimes. Some radical Sunnis actually consider Shia to be non-believers. 

Other Twitter users mourned the death of the “martyrs” killed in the attack.

Saudi journalist Abdulaziz Alkhamis of Al Arab denounced the attacks altogether, tweeting: “Each killing of innocents — no matter what their nationality or race or religion — is a crime and unacceptable act.”

Another Twitter user evoked sectarianism when remembering the 1981 attack on the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, for which an Iraqi Shiite party, supported by Iran, was blamed. “It seems that the Iranians have begun to pay their bill for blowing up the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut,” Bander150 wrote, “…as [poet] Nizar Qabbani shed tears over his wife Balqis.”

Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani famously wrote a heart-wrenching poem about the death of his Iraqi wife Balqis, then employed at the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut. Here is a live recording of Qabbani reading the poem, along with a translation.