By Noora Ibrahim and Ayman Amzein.
Benghazi, 3 April 2014:
Two Benghazi businesses were bombed early this . . .[restrict]morning in what appears to be a coordinated attack. Both incidents took place in the city’s Fuwayhat district and both involved the same method – a bag of explosives linked to a mobile phone, according to Benghazi Joint Security Room.
A popular coffee shop in Dubai Street known as Lavazza, after the brand of coffee it serves, was the first to be attacked, during the night. A women’s hairdressers and beauty salon known as the Lolita Centre in Fuwayhat’s Belaoun area was hit around an hour later, just before dawn.
No one was hurt in either attack but the second caused major damage, not just to the beauty salon but also to surrounding buildings, among them a restaurant and a jewellery shop.
“We don’t know who did it,” said the Security Room spokesman Ibrahim Al-Sharaa.
Women’s beauty shops have been attacked in the Fuwayhat area before. In October last year, in Dubai Street, a women’s perfume and cosmetics shop was badly damaged in an RPG attack, again early in the morning, at around 4.40 am.
In June 2012, a beauty parlour called Maraiya, was attacked in a drive-by shooting.
Islamists were believed responsible for both previous attacks, but it is not known why Islamists would now want to attack a coffee shop. [/restrict]
