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VIOLENT SPILLOVER FROM SYRIA KILLS 2 IN NORTHERN LEBANON CITY OF TRIPOLI
Today's Zaman, Turkey
Oct 28 2013
28 October 2013 /REUTERS, AP, TRIPOLI, DAMASCUS
Two people died in the northern city of Tripoli on Monday, security
and medical sources said, in fighting between supporters and opponents
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese army which has
spilled over from the war next door.
Lebanon, which is plagued by sectarian tension, is struggling to
curb violence stemming from the civil war in Syria, where more than
100,000 people have been killed in the past two-and-a-half ways.
The dead were from the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh, where gunmen
on Monday clashed with the Lebanese army, which is trying to curb the
violence from Syria. Twelve people from the area were also wounded,
the sources said.
A soldier and a resident of Jebel Mohsen, the nearby Alawite enclave
which the army entered on Sunday as part of an increased presence
throughout the city were also wounded, residents said.
The clashes, which broke out last Tuesday and continued over the
weekend, have killed 17 people and wounded more than 100.
Sunni Muslims and Shiites from Assad's Alawite sect have clashed in
Tripoli on and off for decades, but the Syrian conflict has reopened
old wounds, with each side accusing the other of using the city as
a base for sending fighters and weapons in and out of Syria.
Regime troops retake town Elsewhere, Syrian regime forces retook a
Christian town north of Damascus on Monday after a week of fierce
clashes with al-Qaeda-linked fighters who had recently captured key
parts of it, state media said.
The fighting came as the UN-Arab League envoy arrived in Syria on
his first trip to the country in almost a year.
Lakhdar Brahimi is trying to prepare a peace conference on Syria
supposed to take place in Geneva next month but the gathering has been
increasingly in doubt as Syria's warring factions refuse to face each
other at the negotiating table.
The United States and Russia have been trying for months to convene
the conference to negotiate a political solution to Syria's civil war,
which has killed more than 100,000 people and forced some 2 million
to flee the country since the conflict erupted in March 2011.
After his last trip to Syria in December 2012, Brahimi had angered
Syrian authorities when he said that 40 years of the Assad family
rule in Syria was "too long." Syrian officials then accused him of
being biased.
This time, Brahimi visited several countries in the region, including
Iran, where he said Saturday that the participation of Iran -- a key
backer of Assad -- at a Syria peace conference was "necessary." On
Monday, Brahimi travelled from Tehran by private jet to Beirut,
then continued by road to Damascus.
In the Lebanese capital, he would not speak to reporters. "I will
speak when I return," he said.
Arab League's chief Nabil Elaraby recently said the Geneva conference
would be held on Nov. 23. Brahimi, however, has stressed that no
date has been set but that the United Nations hopes to organize the
gathering in late November.
The fighting in Syria, meanwhile, has continued unabated. The state-run
SANA news agency said the army "restored security and stability"
to the town of Sadad, 120 kilometers (75 mile) north of Damascus,
early on Monday.
It said "a large number of terrorists" were killed and their weapons
seized, adding that the army dismantled scores of roadside bombs
planted by gunmen around the Christian town.
Sadad had been in opposition hands since last week, when
al-Qaeda-linked groups captured a checkpoint that gave them control
of the western part of the town.
The rebels appear to have targeted Sadad because of its strategic
location near the main highway north of Damascus, rather than because
it is Christian. But hard-liners among the rebels are hostile to
Syria's Christian minority, which fears the radicals and tends to
favor Assad. Other al-Qaeda-linked fighters have damaged and desecrated
churches in areas they have seized.
SANA said the army was still pursuing opposition fighters who
fled Sadad for surrounding farms It also reported that the rebels
had vandalized the town's Saint Theodor Church and much of its
infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
that jihadis in Syria torched an Armenian church in the northern town
of Tel Abyad along the border with Turkey late on Sunday.
Today's Zaman, Turkey
Oct 28 2013
28 October 2013 /REUTERS, AP, TRIPOLI, DAMASCUS
Two people died in the northern city of Tripoli on Monday, security
and medical sources said, in fighting between supporters and opponents
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese army which has
spilled over from the war next door.
Lebanon, which is plagued by sectarian tension, is struggling to
curb violence stemming from the civil war in Syria, where more than
100,000 people have been killed in the past two-and-a-half ways.
The dead were from the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh, where gunmen
on Monday clashed with the Lebanese army, which is trying to curb the
violence from Syria. Twelve people from the area were also wounded,
the sources said.
A soldier and a resident of Jebel Mohsen, the nearby Alawite enclave
which the army entered on Sunday as part of an increased presence
throughout the city were also wounded, residents said.
The clashes, which broke out last Tuesday and continued over the
weekend, have killed 17 people and wounded more than 100.
Sunni Muslims and Shiites from Assad's Alawite sect have clashed in
Tripoli on and off for decades, but the Syrian conflict has reopened
old wounds, with each side accusing the other of using the city as
a base for sending fighters and weapons in and out of Syria.
Regime troops retake town Elsewhere, Syrian regime forces retook a
Christian town north of Damascus on Monday after a week of fierce
clashes with al-Qaeda-linked fighters who had recently captured key
parts of it, state media said.
The fighting came as the UN-Arab League envoy arrived in Syria on
his first trip to the country in almost a year.
Lakhdar Brahimi is trying to prepare a peace conference on Syria
supposed to take place in Geneva next month but the gathering has been
increasingly in doubt as Syria's warring factions refuse to face each
other at the negotiating table.
The United States and Russia have been trying for months to convene
the conference to negotiate a political solution to Syria's civil war,
which has killed more than 100,000 people and forced some 2 million
to flee the country since the conflict erupted in March 2011.
After his last trip to Syria in December 2012, Brahimi had angered
Syrian authorities when he said that 40 years of the Assad family
rule in Syria was "too long." Syrian officials then accused him of
being biased.
This time, Brahimi visited several countries in the region, including
Iran, where he said Saturday that the participation of Iran -- a key
backer of Assad -- at a Syria peace conference was "necessary." On
Monday, Brahimi travelled from Tehran by private jet to Beirut,
then continued by road to Damascus.
In the Lebanese capital, he would not speak to reporters. "I will
speak when I return," he said.
Arab League's chief Nabil Elaraby recently said the Geneva conference
would be held on Nov. 23. Brahimi, however, has stressed that no
date has been set but that the United Nations hopes to organize the
gathering in late November.
The fighting in Syria, meanwhile, has continued unabated. The state-run
SANA news agency said the army "restored security and stability"
to the town of Sadad, 120 kilometers (75 mile) north of Damascus,
early on Monday.
It said "a large number of terrorists" were killed and their weapons
seized, adding that the army dismantled scores of roadside bombs
planted by gunmen around the Christian town.
Sadad had been in opposition hands since last week, when
al-Qaeda-linked groups captured a checkpoint that gave them control
of the western part of the town.
The rebels appear to have targeted Sadad because of its strategic
location near the main highway north of Damascus, rather than because
it is Christian. But hard-liners among the rebels are hostile to
Syria's Christian minority, which fears the radicals and tends to
favor Assad. Other al-Qaeda-linked fighters have damaged and desecrated
churches in areas they have seized.
SANA said the army was still pursuing opposition fighters who
fled Sadad for surrounding farms It also reported that the rebels
had vandalized the town's Saint Theodor Church and much of its
infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
that jihadis in Syria torched an Armenian church in the northern town
of Tel Abyad along the border with Turkey late on Sunday.