TRIPOLI, Lebanon: Supporters and opponents of a popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad clashed in neighboring Lebanon’s port city of Tripoli on Saturday, leaving one dead and ten others wounded, residents said.
They said the fatality was a civilian caught in the crossfire, adding that a Lebanese soldier was wounded when the army tried to intervene.
Gunmen from the Jabal Mohsen district, home to the minority Alawite sect, the same offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs, have fought on-off skirmishes over the past few weeks with residents of Bab Al-Tabbaneh, who are Sunni Muslims.
The neighborhoods have long-standing grievances separate from the Syria conflict but the Sunni-led uprising has fermented strife among Lebanon’s divided population, especially in majority Sunni Tripoli, 70 km (43 miles) north of Beirut.
