27 PEOPLE KILLED IN CLASHES IN TRIPOLI, LEBANON
Tripoli (Lebanon), 21 Jumadil Awwal 1435/22 March 2014 (MINA) – The death toll from the latest clashes in the Lebanese city of Tripoli has risen to 27 following nine days of fighting between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government.
Local media said on Saturday that some 175 people have been also injured since clashes between armed men from the neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen began on March 13, Press TV quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
The Bab al-Tabbaneh residents support foreign-backed militants operating against the Syrian government, while the inhabitants of neighboring Jabal Mohsen are loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
Reports said civilians were among the casualties, adding that some 33 army soldiers were also injured.
Many people have been killed in the Lebanese city since the outbreak of turmoil in Syria in March 2011. The Lebanese army has on many occasions intervened to calm the situation in Tripoli.
Last month, two people were killed and nearly a dozen others injured in clashes that followed the assassination of Abdel-Rahman Diab – a senior official in Lebanon’s Arab Democratic Party, which supports President Assad.
Ten people were also killed in January, including a Lebanese army soldier, during five days of clashes between the two sides in the city.
Lebanon has been also suffering from terrorist attacks carried out by linked militant groups, as well as random rocket attacks, which are viewed as a spillover of violence from neighboring Syria.
The Bab al-Tibbaneh–Jabal Mohsen conflict is a recurring conflict between Sunni Muslim residents of the Bab-al-Tibbaneh and Alawite Muslim residents of the Jabal Mohsen neighbourhoods of Tripoli, Lebanon. Residents of the two neighbourhoods have been rivals since the Lebanese civil war, and have often engaged in violence. They are divided along sectarian lines, as well as by their opposition or support of the Alawite-lead Syrian government. Violence flared up during the Syrian civil war.
Tripoli is the second largest city in Lebanon after Beirut. Located in the northern governorate of Lebanon, the city consists of an overwhelming density of Sunni Muslims out of the 500,000 residents of the city and is considered as the traditional stronghold of conservative Sunnis in Lebanon. Tripoli is also the birthplace of Lebanon’s Salafi Movement, a puritanical Sunni movement which includes different Jihadist schools, many of which tend towards violence against other sectarian groups or even other Sunni religious schools.(T/P04/E01)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
