The European Union and Britain have strongly condemned the bombing that hit the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed.

“I condemn today’s explosion in southern Beirut. My thoughts are with those injured in the attack and their families,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

Gunmen have kidnapped a Lebanese national from a construction site in southern Nigeria, where abductions for ransom occur frequently, authorities said on Tuesday.

The assailants kidnapped Sani Youssef, an employee with Lebanese-owned Setraco Nigeria Limited construction company in Benin City in the southern state of Edo on Monday, police spokesman Moses Eguavoen told Agence France Presse.

Iran has strongly condemned the bombing that targeted the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed on Tuesday.

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi said the move was an “ominous conspiracy” plotted by “the Israeli regime and its allies in the region,” in remarks carried by the website of Iran's English-language Press TV.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc warned on Tuesday that the explosion at a parking lot in the Bir al-Abed area of the southern suburb of Beirut aimed at “targeting national unity.”

"We condemn the blast that targeted Bir al-Abed and we consider that the criminal hands behind it aimed at destabilizing security and inciting people against each others and causing strife in the country,” the MPs said in a released statement after the bloc's weekly meeting at the Center House.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday blamed the Dahieh bombing on “those who endorse the Takfiri ideology” and “those who make fiery speeches.”

“The bombing incident must not only be a subject for condemnation. Everyone who endorses an explosive rhetoric must be condemned and the person who detonates a bomb in residential neighborhoods is a major criminal,” Aoun said after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabiyeh.

Caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil held talks on Tuesday with Speaker Nabih Berri on the petroleum file and the need for cabinet to convene in order to follow up on this issue.

He said: “We hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of progress that can be achieved over this issue.”

First Military Investigation Judge Riyad Abu Ghida on Tuesday followed-up on the cases of detainees involved in the clashes of the southern town of Abra, and issued arrest warrants against them.

"Abu Ghida interrogated six detainees in the presence of their defense lawyers,” the state-run National News Agency reported, adding that he issued arrest warrants against them.

The United States and United Nations condemned on Tuesday the bombing in the Bir al-Abed neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs, voicing their rejection of such violent acts in Lebanon.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly “strongly” condemned the attack, calling on all parties to “exercise calm, constraint and respect for the country's security and stability.”

A Military Examining Magistrate demanded on Tuesday the death penalty for 37 suspects, including the municipal chief of the northeastern town of Arsal, over the killing of two soldiers in February.

The request was made in the indictment issued by Judge Fadi Sawan.

A man was injured on Tuesday after Hizbullah members opened fire in the air to disperse protesters who assaulted Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel after he inspected the site of a powerful blast in Beirut's southern suburbs.

Charbel was leaving the Bir al-Abed neighborhood along with acting Internal Security Forces chief Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous and accompanying officers when angry residents began pelting him with stones.