Mashnouq Says Tripoli Security Plan Firm, Refuses to Yield to Street Pressure

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq stressed on Thursday that the security plan enforced in the northern city of Tripoli is “holding up,” pointing out that arrests occur according to arrest warrants.

“We will not yield to the pressure exerted by the street” to free detained suspects, Mashnouq said in comments published in As Safir newspaper.

The minister said that security forces apprehend felons based on documents that were inherited by the Syrian hegemony, which inflicted a “tensed” situation.

Mashnouq said that the matter is being discussed with the Army Intelligence and the General Security Directorate.

On Wednesday, protesters blocked roads in Tripoli with burning tires and erected tents at Abou Ali roundabout and blocked it with stones, garbage bins and some trucks demanding the release of the so-called leader of the Souq al-Qameh fighting frontier in Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood Ziad Allouki.

Several grenades were also tossed near al-Nasseri mosque.

Sources told As Safir newspaper that arrests are based on thorough monitoring and some obtained information, noting that the army swiftly releases “any person wrongfully detained.”

In April, the army deployed heavily in Tripoli as it started implementing a security plan established by the government to end violence in the area.

Tripoli witnesses frequent gunbattles between two of the impoverished neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which is dominated by Sunnis who support Syrian rebels, and Jabal Mohsen, which is dominated by Alawites, who share the same sect as Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Clashes in Tripoli have left scores of casualties during the last round.

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