Four killed in Beirut blast near Iran culture centre

A large explosion near an Iranian cultural centre in the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Wednesday killed at least four people and wounded 19, security sources said.

Security sources said the explosion appeared to have been caused by a car bomb and a motorcycle laden with explosives.

The area is controlled by the Shi'ite political and militant movement Hezbollah. Iran's embassy in the same area was targeted by a bomb attack in November, one a series of car bombs in southern Beirut since July.

The Kuwaiti embassy is also located in the same area.

Lebanese television footage showed fire trucks and Lebanese soldiers standing in the streets. A wounded man was carried away on a stretcher and a young girl was being evacuated by two men. Glass covered the road and nearby buildings were damaged.

Radical Sunni Islamists have pledged to attack Hezbollah on Lebanese soil for its intervention in Syria to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Alawite offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, in his war against majority Sunni rebels.

(Reporting by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)