BEIRUT — Nothing but death all around the place. Chunks of human flesh can be seen everywhere — a hand, a leg, half a body. Dozens of people are wounded, some covered with blood and shaking in shock after the twin suicide bombing that struck the entrance of the Iranian Cultural Center in southern Beirut on Feb. 19, killing at least five, along with the two suicide bombers.

"We should have died, my wife and myself. We should have died," said an eyewitness who was only a few meters from where the suicide bomber detonated himself. "I saw him getting beneath the building's gate. He was trying to get in with his car. Suddenly, everything was black. I couldn't see anything. Another three seconds and another explosion took place. I don't remember anything else."

A security source in Beirut told Al-Monitor that the plan was similar to that of the Nov. 19, 2013 twin attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut. "The first attacker was to open a hole in the security measures near the Iranian Cultural Center, while the second suicide bomber was to drive into the building and detonate the car," said the source. The other car can be seen some 50 meters away from where it should have exploded; it didn't arrive. The source believes a technical problem led to the early detonation of the car. "This rid the area of a real massacre," he said.

The second car exploded in front of an orphanage during the children's lunch time, leaving dozens of them injured and all of them traumatized. Families and teachers rushed the children to ambulances and safer areas, while rooms and halls of the Dar al-Aytam al-Islamiyah orphanage were direly affected by the explosion.