Lebanese security forces killed a suspected bomb-maker and arrested another prominent militant suspect overnight in the northern city of Tripoli, sending armed supporters onto the streets in protest, security sources said yesterday.
Religiously mixed Lebanon has suffered a wave of sectarian violence and multiple bomb attacks linked to the war in Syria which, like its neighbor Iraq, is fighting a Sunni Muslim insurgency.
Monzer al-Hassan, accused of providing explosives for an alleged suicide bomber who reportedly wounded three security officers in the Duroy Hotel in Beirut last month, was killed during a raid at his home, the sources said.
They said he was wearing an explosive belt during the raid and threatened to detonate.
Hussam al-Sabbagh was arrested at a checkpoint in the city, the sources said.
There are several arrest warrants out for al-Sabbagh, who is accused of supporting gunmen in the Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which has clashed with the adjacent Alawite neighborhood of Jebel Mohsen.
The divisions in Tripoli, 30km from the Syrian border, reflect the sectarian gulf across Lebanon over Syria’s civil war.
However, the coastal city, where tensions between the Sunni Muslim majority and small Alawite community have festered for decades, has seen some of the heaviest violence this year.
Lebanese soldiers were trying to clear the streets of Sunni gunmen on Sunday fearing an uptick in violence, security sources said.
The army blocked off a major roundabout near Bab al-Tabbaneh where about 150 men with assault rifles and other guns had deployed, although there were no reports of clashes.
Clashes between fighters in Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen have flared several times in recent months, killing dozens since the beginning of the year.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
RSS