Beirut: Tensions flared in Beirut overnight after four Sunni clerics were attacked in two separate incidents in majority Shiite areas of the Lebanese capital, sparking angry demonstrations.

Mazen Hariri and Ahmad Fekhran, both scholars at Lebanon’s highest Sunni seat of learning, Dar Al Fatwa, were attacked by a group of men in the mainly Shiite Khandak Al Gamik area after they left the Mohammad Al Ameen mosque in downtown Beirut, security sources said on Monday.

Ebrahim Abdul Latif and Omar Emani, also Sunni scholars, were assaulted in Shiyah, a Shiite district in southern Beirut.

The two main Shiite parties in Lebanon, the Hezbollah group and Amal, were quick to condemn the attacks and handed over five suspects to security forces, the sources said. They said the five men had been under the influence of drugs.

The extent of the injuries inflicted on the Sunni shaikhs was not clear, but a photo of two of them posted on Facebook showed one in a neck brace and the other with a bruised face.

As news of the attacks spread, protesters took to the streets near Makassed Hospital, demanding the arrest of the attackers and laying burning tyres across roads to block traffic.

In a statement issued around midnight, the military said it had arrested several suspects in the two attacks.

“Following the attacks on several clerics in the areas of Khandak Al Gamik and Shiyah, an army patrol went to the homes of the perpetrators and was able to arrest five of them,” the military said.

It added that the military was continuing to search for additional suspects in the attacks.

The incident comes amid fears in Lebanon of rising tensions between the country’s religious and political groups, with the civil war in neighbouring Syria threatening to exacerbate existing divides between Lebanon’s communities.

Overnight, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, in Italy for the inauguration of the new pope, urged calm.

“God protect Lebanon from sectarian strife,” he wrote on his official Twitter account.

“The perpetrators will be held accountable, whatever party they come from.”