Fresh Clashes in Lebanon wound Many

Several people were wounded as new clashes erupted on Wednesday between the army and rival neighborhoods in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli, a security official said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said shooting erupted after soldiers tried to remove barricades in the sensitive mainly neighborhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh.

The neighborhood sits opposite Jabal Mohsen, a district populated mainly by loyalists to the embattled regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Bab al-Tebbaneh residents for their part back the opposition seeking to overturn Assad’s regime.

Battles first erupted on Saturday between residents of the rival neighborhoods after security forces arrested Shadi al-Mawlawi, an Islamist, on alleged charges of belonging to a terrorist organization.

Mawlawi’s supporters say he was targeted because of his help for Syrian refugees fleeing to Lebanon.

Some 500 of them blocked a main road leading into Tripoli on Monday and said they would leave only after Mawlawi was released.

A total of nine people, including a soldier hit by sniper fire, died in the port city and dozens were wounded in the fighting, according to Alarabiya.