BEIRUT/TRIPOLI: Lebanese soldiers exchanged gunfire with gunmen in the northern city of Tripoli Tuesday after Army units came under repeated attacks at night, security sources said.
There were no reports of casualties from the fresh flare-up that broke out at 10 a.m.
During the skirmish with assault rifles, gunmen fired three rocket-propelled grenades toward an Army post in Talaat al-Omari, but missed the target, the sources added.
They said gunmen lobbed several stun grenades at Lebanese Army posts in the Tripoli neighborhoods of Ghorabaa, Beddawi and Mankoubeen between 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Monday.
An Army position on Syria Street also came under a similar attack. No casualties were reported.
Syria Street separates the warring Tripoli neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen, a predominantly Alawite area that owes allegiance to Syrian President Bashar Assad, and mainly Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh, which supports the Syrian uprising.
Soldiers deployed in the warring neighborhoods in December in an effort to end more than a dozen rounds of fighting between pro- and anti-Assad gunmen linked to the crisis in next-door Syria.
The two sides have been in on-again, off-again conflict since the 1980s but the three-year-old war in Syria between Assad, an Alawite, and the majority Sunni rebels has opened old wounds in Tripoli with recurrent bouts of gun battles.
Scores of fighters, Sunnis among them, have been arrested by the Army as it pursues a six-month-long mandate to end bloodshed in battering Tripoli.
Sunnis, however, accuse the military of targeting them while turning a blind eye to Alawites.
The nighttime hostilities kept thousands of students at home for a sixth day as schools and universities remained closed.
Monday’s clashes brought the death toll to 15 and the number of wounded to around 90 since the latest round of violence erupted Thursday.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam is scheduled to hold a meeting at the Grand Serail Tuesday with Tripoli’s lawmakers, including former Prime Minister Najib Mikati, to discuss ways to restore stability in Tripoli.
No comments:
Post a Comment