Grenades Attack, Road Closure as Army Carries out Tripoli Raids
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
The implementation of a security plan by the Lebanese army in the northern city of Tripoli faced on Tuesday attacks and protests by angry men.
The state-run National News Agency said several grenades were tossed in the area of al-Baraniyeh as residents shortly blocked the road of al-Dabagha and wheat market with burning tires.
The grenade attack and the road closure were aimed at stopping the army from carrying out raids to arrest suspects involved in dozens of clashes that the city has witnessed in the past years.
The protest expanded when the army impounded two cars from the motorcade of Dai al-Islam al-Shahhal, a prominent Salafist leader in Lebanon, in al-Baraniyeh, NNA said.
The army soon intervened to disperse the protesters, arresting two people for the possession of three rifles, two guns, and ammunition.
They were also found to have been driving a vehicle without proper legal papers.
The army deployed in Tripoli last week in an unprecedented operation to quell violence between the Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen and the nearby Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh.
Al-Shahhal considered in a press conference that “there's a conspiracy targeting the Sunni sect by some sides that want it to subdued by the Iranian project.”
“Lebanon is abducted and our army is being diverted to treat its people similar to the Syrian army.”
He wondered why the “Salafist movement is being targeted.”
“The army commits mistakes and if offenders weren't held responsible then we would be covering up for more crimes against” Sunnis, al-Shahhal added.
A Baabda Palace statement said President Michel Suleiman followed up the security plan, stressing the importance of taking the necessary measures to reach stability and arrest perpetrators to bring them to justice.
Tensions between the two impoverished districts of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh go back decades but have been exacerbated by the war in Syria, where Alawite President Bashar Assad faces Sunni rebels seeking to topple him.
Successive rounds of violence between the neighborhoods have killed dozens of people and brought parts of the city to a standstill.
G.K.
H.K.
08 April 2014, 08:40
47
it is about time they arrest all these Iranian backed trouble makers.
08 April 2014, 08:55
24
I agree - they need to arrest both sides to be fare to everyone. But how do we know who threw the grenades on the army, is the area they have mentioned in the Alawite side? Sorry, I don't know much about that area.
08 April 2014, 09:01
57
Every attack has been by the jihadists supporters of the terror party.
08 April 2014, 15:04
52
looooool now salafists are iranian too? wow, i bet saudi and wahhabis are also being run from tehran, the center of the world :)
as we saw, everybody is cooperating with the lebanese army, alawites in jabal mohsen, sunnis in bab el tabbaneh, shias in hermel etc...
the only ones not cooperating and actually attacking the army are the takfiris and salafists. too bad, they will have to be eradicated. go LAF, show them how you dealt with assir :)
(oh geha, was assir also iranian backed? rofl)
08 April 2014, 10:01
03
Let's hope the Lebanese army can restore peace to Tripoli and arrest all involved in what has been going there in the past few years. Lebanon's second city deserves to be peaceful place, not a war zone.
08 April 2014, 12:03
43
No matter whom it may be, let the LAF strike with an iron hand, only the iron will of the LAF, now crucially in Tripoli will test the very credibility of the LAF. In truth, there's no turning back now, failure from the LAF is not an option, either it delivers or in the case of failure, it will send a powerful if not irreversible message to all the warring factions and to those who support them, that the Lebanese state has proven once again that it is incapable of translating its will on the ground. The collateral is way too high then, as anarchy and chaos will settle in, to be rapidly followed by civil war and the total disintegration of Lebanon as it is. The consequences will indeed be dire and well beyond any measure of our worst fears as we will simply be sucked into the Syrian civil war.
08 April 2014, 15:26
41
@Full-Closure: Your eloquence, poise, and political vision reminds me of the late JFK. You are special whoever you are and wherever you are.
08 April 2014, 22:51
00
people who are siding with the killers of our beloved army are terrorists
be it the ones who are funding them , politicians who are covering them
game is over like we say in Lebanese
deb el talej .......
