More Syria-bound Tankers Torched in Northern Lebanon

Several Syria-bound fuel tanker trucks were torched in northern Lebanon on Friday, a day after seven such incidents took place in the same area, the state-run National News Agency and Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) reported.

VDL said Friday's attacks took place on the main road of al-Beddawi and Tripoli. But NNA's reporter denied any such incident took place on Friday.

Only seven trucks were torched on Thursday night to prevent their passage to war-torn Syria, NNA said.

The fire on Thursday night gutted four trucks in Tripoli's Souk al-Ahad near the Rafik Hariri clinic. Towering walls of flames engulfed the vehicles

Three other trucks with tanks full of fuel oil were burned from the front on the international highway near al-Tabbaneh, the agency said.

NNA added a Lebanese man, Yehya al-Hajj, and his wife suffered minor injures while passing near the torched trucks.

Also Thursday, protesters in the eastern Bekaa town of Saadnayel blocked the road to two Syrian tanker trucks and broke their windows.

The army intervened and fired into the air to disperse the protesters who sought to empty the diesel on the street.

Last month, the residents of northern border towns blocked the roads that lead to Syria to prevent fuel tanker trucks from crossing into the country after claiming that diesel exported to Syria is being used by regime tanks in the country's civil war.

The protesters called on the Lebanese authorities to take a stronger position on the Syria crisis, and to stop allowing fuel supplies across the border.

But the energy ministry denied reports that government-owned refineries were sending diesel to Syria, which is suffering a major crisis of gasoline and diesel because of the war.