SIDON, Lebanon: Masked Islamist gunmen cut off roads leading to two neighborhoods inside the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, in Sidon, to protest against the police crackdown on Islamist inmates at Roumieh Prison Monday, security sources told The Daily Star.
The gunmen, who are led by Palestinian commander Haitham al-Shaabi, fanned out in the streets, blocking access to al-Tawarek and Taamir neighborhoods, after they had received information that a Palestinian prisoner who hails from Ain al-Hilweh had been injured in the raid in Roumieh, the sources said.
However, the Internal Security Forces, which carried out the Roumieh raid, said in a statement that no prisoners were injured during the operation.
Lebanese Army troops posted at the entrances of the sprawling camp, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps, stepped up security measures in anticipation of possible escalation, thoroughly checking cars and the identity of motorists entering and leaving the settlement.
In parallel, members of Al-Fouhoud (Arabic for panthers), an elite police force, were deployed near the Justice Palace in Sidon.
The sources said similar precautionary security measures were taken around the serail in the town of Jezzine in south Lebanon, which houses a prison where a large number of followers of fugitive Salafi preacher Ahmad al-Assir, are detained.
The morning crackdown in Roumieh came in the aftermath of information that some of the prisoners were connected to the weekend's twin suicide attacks that targeted a cafe in Tripoli's majority Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, killing 9 and wounding more than 30.
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