Updated 12:24 pm: Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut's southern suburbs Tuesday morning, killing at least 23 people and wounding over 100, private television and state news reported.
Al Mayadeen TV said that security cameras showed the first suicide bomber charge the embassy on a motorcycle and blow himself up to clear the way for a second bomber, who detonated a car packed with explosives.
Iran's ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi told the Beirut-based station that no one was killed inside the embassy, located in the densely populated neighborhood of Bir Hassan.
But Roknabadi later announced that Iran's cultural Ambassaddor Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ansari was killed in the attack. All other victims appeared to be passers-by.
Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil put the casualty figures at 23 dead and 146 injured.
TV Footage showed several corpses strewn across the ground, some of them on fire, at the site of the explosions.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the "cowardly terrorist act" aimed to stir tensions.
The explosions comes about three months after a series of car bombs targeted residential neighborhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut, widely blamed on Salafi extremist with ties to Syria's al-Qaeda-linked rebels.
The most deadly of them killed 27 in Dahiyeh's Roueiss neighborhood on August 15.