BEIRUT: Lebanon’s state news agency says clashes between supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad and opponents killed eight people in the northern city of Tripoli over the weekend. The NNA said Sunday that 60 people were wounded.
Sectarian clashes linked to the war in neighboring Syria often flare between two impoverished rival neighborhoods in the rundown coastal city. The Bab Tabbaneh district is largely Sunni, as are most of the Syrian rebels fighting Assad’s rule. Residents of Jabal Mohsen are mostly of Assad’s Alawite sect.
Fighting began Saturday after Sunni gunmen shot a man whose brother controls an Alawite militia, sparking gun battles that trapped children in schools and forced traders to flee their shops.
Meanwhile, a mortar shell hit the French school in the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday without causing any injuries to children in class at the time, officials said.
“A mortar shell landed on the chimney of a classroom around 9:00 a.m. (0700 GMT). No one was hurt but the windows shattered and the walls cracked,” school receptionist Bashir Oneiz told AFP.
