Tripoli Man Killed Fighting Alongside Syrian Rebels in Aleppo
A man who hails from the northern city of Tripoli has been killed while fighting alongside the armed Syrian opposition against forces loyal to the regime.
“Gunfire was heard in Tripoli during a prayer for the dead for Ahmed Zaki Mansour,” LBCI television reported, adding that "Moamen Kahil, a minor, was wounded in the back by a stray bullet" from the shooting.
LBCI clarified that Mansour was killed in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo.
Meanwhile, the Facebook page Tripoli News Network said the gunshots were fired on al-Rahbat Street and published a picture of a crowd carrying black Islamist flags.
In November 2012, several Lebanese Islamists, including Tripolitans, were killed in an ambush by Syrian regime forces in the Homs town of Tal Kalakh.
Thousands of foreign fighters have joined Syrian rebels pitted against the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Lebanese Islamist clerics Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir and Sheikh Salem al-Rafehi have called on their followers to join rebels fighting in Syria and to support Sunni residents of the embattled central province of Homs.
Since it began in March 2011, Syria's conflict has fueled local tensions between the communities in Lebanon, with bouts of street fighting and kidnappings.
Hizbullah fighters have also helped regime forces recapture the key town of Qusayr near Lebanon's border from rebel hands.
In the wake of the Qusayr battle, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the group will stay involved in the Syrian conflict. "Where we need to be, we will be ... To defeat this very, very dangerous conspiracy we will bear any sacrifices and all the consequences," said Nasrallah.
He had previously justified the group's involvement in Syria by saying it was defending Lebanese-inhabited border villages inside Syria and Shiite holy sites in the Damascus province.
But during a May 25 speech Nasrallah said "if Syria falls in the hands of the Takfiris and the United States, the resistance will become under a siege."
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