Renewed fighting in northern Lebanon claims 2 more lives

Street fighting pursued for the fourth consecutive day on Friday and overnight violence claimed life of two more persons, according to security sources. The two Lebanese lost their life in the fighting, which erupted at the middle of the night and proceeded till the wee hours today, between the predominantly-Sunni district of Bab Al-Tabanah and Jabal Mohsen, mainly inhabited by Alawites. The foe militias used rockets and machine guns during the violence in the city, located roughly 80 kilometers north of the capital Beirut. The latest casualties hiked the toll of four days of fighting to at least nine dead and more than 70 others wounded. Army troops, stationed in the city and close to the hot spots, carried out a troop redeployment operation, the sources said, adding that the forces staged patrols in renewed bids to quell the violence. The local foes, in the early hours of last night, engaged in fierce clashes with various arms. Sound of recurring blasts echoed across Tripoli, Lebanon's second largest city. The new cycle of violence came after at least 14 natives of the city were killed in an ambush by the Syrian government forces, while the Lebanese were en route to the Syrian central province of Homs to aid opposition forces battling the troops of President Bashar Al-Assad. The local media said that three of the armed group survived the ambush, and that Damascus promised to hand over bodies of the slain elements. Bab Al-Tabanah hosts gunmen sympathetic with the Syrian anti-regime rebellion, while the majority of the Alawites in the adjacent neighborhood declare allegiance to the Syrian leader, himself a member of the this offshoot Shiite sect. The local Tripoli front was first erected after eruption of the civil war in 1975, however, local Muslim and Christian leaders had succeeded in removing it, although the local warfare proceeded elsewhere in the country, particularly along the Beirut "green line" that continued to exist until the late 90s when a broad national conciliation accord was reached.