TRIPOLI, Lebanon: A Lebanese Sunni cleric close to the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al Assad was shot dead in the northern Lebanon town of Tripoli yesterday, a security source said.
“Sunni sheikh Saadeddine Ghiyeh was mortally wounded by a bullet to the head while he was getting into his car in the Bahsa neighbourhood in the centre of town,” the source said.
“Two masked men on a motorbike pulled up alongside him and one of them shot and seriously injured the cleric, who was declared dead upon his arrival in hospital.”
The 43-year-old was a member of the Islamic Action Front, an umbrella grouping of pro-Syrian regime Sunni groups in Lebanon.He was wounded several months earlier by a grenade that was thrown at him.
He was reportedly close to the head of the Front, Hashem Minkara, who was arrested four days ago on suspicion of involvement in an August 23 double bombing in Tripoli that killed 45 people.
Tripoli is regularly the scene of violence between its Sunni majority and a minority of Alawites — the religious community from which Syria’s President Bashar Al Assad hails.
Violence has usually pitted the Sunni neighbourhood of Bab Al Tebbaneh, which backs the Syrian uprising, against the neighbourhood of Jabal Mohsen, which is populated by Alawites.
The Syrian uprising, which pits a Sunni-dominated rebellion against the Assad government, has inflamed existing sectarian tensions in Lebanon.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation is in talks with the Syrian government about ending a Palestinian refugee camp siege that has prompted tens of thousands to flee, Palestinian officials said yesterday.
Pro-Damascus Palestinian groups have lain siege for months to pro-rebel groups inside the Yarmuk camp in the southern outskirts of Damascus, prompting the exodus of at least 135,000 of its 170,000 residents.
“Negotiations are underway for the withdrawal of the armed men from the camp, the opening of the entrance points and the return of services,” the PLO’s ambassador to Damascus, Anwar Abdel Hadi said.
“If they succeed and the armed men withdraw, the Syrian police will take control of the camp, as it was before the fighting, and the Syrian army will remain on the outskirts,” he added.
“We’re trying to reach a solution.”
The fighting around the camp pits pro-Damascus Palestinian factions, such as Al-Saiqa and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, against groups like Hamas that support the Syrian rebels.
Meanwhile, Syrian Kurds in the northeast have formed a transitional autonomous government, they said in a statement, after making key territorial gains against jihadists in recent weeks.AFP
