North Lebanon Ceasefire Crumbles, 12 More Killed

Anti-Assad Militants Spurn Ceasefire, Clash With Local Alawites

by Jason Ditz, August 22, 2012

Efforts to try to calm the Syrian Civil War spillover in neighboring Lebanon don’t appear to be working tonight, and reports of a tentative ceasefire earlier today appear not to be panning out, as clashes continue in the northern city of Tripoli.

Sunni militant factions have cropped up in the city, nominally to oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad but mostly clashing with Lebanese police as well as the leaders of key Alawite families in the Shi’a districts of Tripoli.

Rebel factions in Syria have sought to use Lebanon as a staging ground, much to the annoyance of the Hezbollah-led Lebanese government. Attempts to expel them have not been particularly successful, however, and the latest deployment of the military to Tripoli looks no more likely to calm the situation.

Fighting today centered around the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh and the neighboring Alawite district of Jebel Mohsen. 12 people were killed in today’s fighting, with scores of others wounded.

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