Syrian Unrest Sparks Fresh Clashes in Lebanon
Opinions on the Assad regime are now fueling sectarian violence outside Syria's borders.
| Posted Monday, May 14, 2012, at 2:23 PM
Photograph by Si Mitchell/AFP/Getty Images.
Violence from Syria's 14-month-long uprising spilled across the border into neighboring Lebanon for the third day on Monday.
The Associated Press reports that at least five people have been killed and another 100 or so injured in Tripoli since the unrest began on Saturday. The largely sectarian clashes erupted after Lebanese authorities arrested an outspoken critic of Syrian President Assad and charged him and five others with carrying out armed acts of violence inside and outside of Lebanon. The arrests enraged the anti-Assad Sunni population, who are clashing with pro-Assad Alawites.
Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor reports that Syrian Sunnis and Lebanese Shiites have engaged in what the paper is calling "tit-for-tat kidnappings" along Lebanon's northern border. An unnamed source told Lebanese paper the Daily Star that the pro-Assad Lebanese were holding 60 Syrian hostages in hopes of trading them for Lebanese taken by the Syrian rebels last week.
The violence, of course, hasn't been contained in Lebanon. Al Jazeera reports that, according to a human rights group, at least 23 Syrian soldiers were killed during skirmishes with the opposition on Monday in the central Syrian city of Rastan, which has been under rebel control since January. According to the U.N., at least 9,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began more than a year ago.
