Lebanese soldiers are patrolling the major roads in the nation’s largest city of Tripoli today after four more people were killed in overnight violence, bringing the toll of the latest round of sectarian clashes to at least 10 dead, and over 70 wounded.
The Tripoli violence is spillover from the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria, where Sunni rebels have been clashing with an Alawite-led government. The fighting in Tripoli is between people from the Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbana and a neighboring Alawite neighborhood.
The incidents in Tripoli crop up from time to time, with the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) at times urging Lebanese Sunnis into a similar uprising. The Lebanese military has been trying to keep the fighting in check, but seems unable to stop it in any long-term way.
This is likely just the reality of Lebanon’s historical dominance by Syria, that the much larger neighbor simply cannot have a sectarian civil war that doesn’t spill over into Lebanon, which has a similar sectarian split but, outside of recently has managed to keep it from exploding into violence.