Army Arrests Main Suspect in Tripoli Hospital Shootout

The Lebanese army said on Thursday that it arrested a main suspect in a shooting on a soldier at the state hospital in the area of al-Qobbeh in the northern city of Tripoli.

“Following a series of raids a military force arrested at dawn one of the main suspects of the shooting,” an army command communique said.

It identified the suspect as Jihad Dandashi.

The communique said he is being interrogated under the supervision of the judiciary and that the army is searching for the rest of the suspects.

The army said on Wednesday night that the soldier was wounded along with his brother when gunmen entered the hospital and opened fire at him.

A third person was also wounded in the incident, it said. Media reports later said the man succumbed to his injuries.

The shooting later expanded into an exchange of fire between the residents of rival neighborhoods Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh, the army added.

Frequent clashes between the two areas have left dozens of casualties. The majority of Bab al-Tabbaneh residents are Sunni and back the revolution against Syrian President Bashar Assad while Jabal Mohsen's residents are mainly Alawites from Assad's sect.

The army deployed heavily in the area that separates the two neighborhoods on Thursday and carried out patrols in Tripoli's streets.

Despite the deployment, a 12-year-old boy was injured from a stray bullet at a playground near al-Zahra hospital in Tripoli's Abi Samra.

Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said a man was also wounded near al-Shifa hospital in a similar incident.

Also Thursday, the head of the Alawite sect, Sheikh Assad al-Assi, said in a press conference that the sect backs the army on condition that it protects the nation and all of Lebanon's confessions.

“We are confronting thugs and wolves,” he said, warning that strife had awakened.