A gunman was detained after opening fire outside the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon on Wednesday, the Lebanese army said.
The military said in a statement that the embassy had been “exposed to gunfire” by a Syrian national who was wounded by troops who responded to the incident. The army added that the gunman had been arrested and taken to a hospital for treatment.
The embassy, which is located in a secured area north of Beirut, said “small arms fire” was reported “in the vicinity” of its entrance at 8:34 a.m. local time. It did not report any casualties among its staff and praised the quick reaction of its security team and Lebanese troops.
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Images published in Lebanese media show the attacker covered in blood and wearing a black vest bearing the words “Islamic State” in Arabic along with the English letters “I” and “S,” according to the Associated Press, though a motive for the attack has not yet been confirmed.
Local reports also suggested that a gunfight involving at least one assailant went on for almost half an hour, and a video circulating on social media appears to show a gunman in a parking lot near the embassy’s entrance firing what looked like an assault rifle, according to the AP.
A Lebanese security source separately told Reuters that soldiers wounded the gunman in the stomach.
Shots were fired near the American embassy in September, though no injuries were reported in connection with that incident. Last year, CNN reported that the sprawling embassy complex located about eight miles from the center of Beirut was causing controversy given its size and “opulence” in the impoverished country.
The incident came 40 years after the 1983 bombing of the former U.S. embassy site in the Lebanese capital which left 63 people dead—an attack that American officials blamed on Hezbollah. The militant group is currently involved in fighting with Israeli forces along Lebanon’s southern border, displacing tens of thousands of people in both Lebanon and Israel.
