Tripoli:a‘mailbox’ on the way to Damascus
The Syrian crisis is spilling into Lebanon, where pro-rebel Sunnis and pro-Assad Alawites face off in country’s second largest city
The Syrian crisis is spilling into Lebanon, where pro-rebel Sunnis and pro-Assad Alawites face off in country’s second largest city
On the eastern outskirts of Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, there’s a ‘front line’ called Syria Street. It marks the boundary between two enemy neighbourhoods: Bab al-Tabbaneh, the Sunni stronghold with a Salafi majority, and the hilly enclave of Jabal Mohsen, an Alawite suburb. Buildings riddled with bullet holes tell a more than 30-year-old story: the war between Sunnis and Shiites that involves age-old family feuds and economic interests. These Swiss cheese homes also tell us that the Syrian crisis is dragging the second most populated city in Lebanon into the mayhem of conflict.
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