Three killed as Syria clashes spill into Lebanon

Tripoli, Lebanon: Three people have been killed and about 40 wounded in two days of fighting in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli, security sources said on Monday, as sectarian violence spilled over from the civil war in Syria.

Rocket-propelled grenades and heavy gunfire shook the city overnight but the exchanges had tapered off into sporadic sniper fire by day time. Four of the wounded were Lebanese soldiers trying to keep the warring sides apart, a security source said.

Syrian activists say the latest fighting in Tripoli, where an Alawite minority lives on a hill overlooking the mainly Sunni port city, was ignited by tensions over an assault by Syrian troops backed by Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah militia on the rebel-held Syrian border town of Qusayr.

Sunnis in Lebanon mostly sympathise with a Sunni-led revolt against Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of the Shiite sect.

Lebanese militants are believed to be crossing the border to join fighting in Syria on both sides of a conflict which has sometimes spilled over into Lebanon, especially in Tripoli.

Each side accuses the other of using Tripoli as a base for sending fighters and weapons in and out of Syria.