AFP- Four people have been killed in fighting in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, where sectarian clashes linked to the Syrian conflict regularly break out, a security source said Monday.
“Three people, a woman and two men, were killed in heavy clashes overnight in which heavy artillery and rockets were used,” the source told AFP.
He said they were from the Sunni neighbourhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh, which regularly clashes with the adjacent Alawite district of Jabal Mohsen.
A fourth person was killed in Jabal Mohsen by a sniper on Monday, the source said.
The sectarian fault line between the neighbourhoods is decades old, but has been exacerbated by the war just across the border in Syria.
Syria’s rebel opposition is dominated by Sunnis, while the country’s President Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite.
The source said 32 people were also wounded in the clashes, which erupted after rocket fire killed eight people last week in the majority-Sunni town of Arsal, which is home to thousands of Syrian refugees.
Arsal is in east Lebanon, near the border with Syria, but tensions in Tripoli often rise in response to events elsewhere.
The source said troops were among those wounded in Tripoli, and soldiers were deployed in the restive districts to try to stop the fighting.
