Lebanon launches major security operation
Source: Agencies |
October 23, 2012, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
LEBANESE troops launched a major security operation yesterday to open all roads and force gunmen off the streets, trying to contain an outburst of violence set off by the assassination of a top intelligence official who was a powerful opponent of Syria.
Opponents of Syria have blamed the regime in Damascus for the killing of Lebanese Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan in a Beirut car bomb last Friday. With Lebanon already tense and deeply divided over the civil war next door, the assassination has threatened to drag the country back into the kind of sectarian strife that plagued it for decades.
"The nation is passing through a crucial and critical period and tension has risen in some areas to unprecedented levels," the army said. It urged politicians to be careful not to incite violence "because the fate of the nation is on the edge."
"Security is a red line," the army said, adding strict measures are being taken to prevent Lebanon from being an arena for settling regional problems.
Cracks of gunfire rang out in Beirut as soldiers and armored personnel carriers with heavy machine guns took up position on major thoroughfares and dismantled roadblocks. The state news agency reported sporadic gunfire in parts of Beirut and around the northern city of Tripoli.
Tripoli saw clashes between two neighborhoods that support opposite sides in Syria's conflict and have a decades-long history of shooting at each other. Four people were killed in the fighting between the Sunni neighborhood of Bab Tabbaneh and the adjacent Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen.
Lebanon and Syria share similar sectarian divides that have fed tensions in both countries. Most of Lebanon's Sunnis have backed Syria's mainly Sunni rebels, while Lebanese Shiites tend to back President Bashar Assad who belongs to the minority Alawite sect.
Opponents of Syria have blamed the regime in Damascus for the killing of Lebanese Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan in a Beirut car bomb last Friday. With Lebanon already tense and deeply divided over the civil war next door, the assassination has threatened to drag the country back into the kind of sectarian strife that plagued it for decades.
"The nation is passing through a crucial and critical period and tension has risen in some areas to unprecedented levels," the army said. It urged politicians to be careful not to incite violence "because the fate of the nation is on the edge."
"Security is a red line," the army said, adding strict measures are being taken to prevent Lebanon from being an arena for settling regional problems.
Cracks of gunfire rang out in Beirut as soldiers and armored personnel carriers with heavy machine guns took up position on major thoroughfares and dismantled roadblocks. The state news agency reported sporadic gunfire in parts of Beirut and around the northern city of Tripoli.
Tripoli saw clashes between two neighborhoods that support opposite sides in Syria's conflict and have a decades-long history of shooting at each other. Four people were killed in the fighting between the Sunni neighborhood of Bab Tabbaneh and the adjacent Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen.
Lebanon and Syria share similar sectarian divides that have fed tensions in both countries. Most of Lebanon's Sunnis have backed Syria's mainly Sunni rebels, while Lebanese Shiites tend to back President Bashar Assad who belongs to the minority Alawite sect.
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