BEIRUT — The Lebanese army took the last position held by militants in the northern city of Tripoli on Monday, Oct. 27, ending two days of battles that marked some of the worst fighting to spill over into Lebanon from the Syrian civil war next door.

Guns fell silent as the army issued a statement saying fighters who had fled should turn themselves in or be hunted down. A security official said the city had been secured and 162 militants arrested.

At least 11 soldiers, eight civilians and 22 militants have died in the fighting in the predominantly Sunni Muslim city where hostilities linked to Syria’s civil war have erupted repeatedly in the last three years.

“The operation is over and the army is entering areas where the gunmen were entrenched in order to clear them,” SAID Samir Jisr, a politician from Tripoli.

The fighting marks the worst spillover of Syria-related violence into Lebanon since early August, when Islamist insurgents affiliated to the Nusra Front and “Islamic State” staged an incursion into the border town of Arsal and took around 20 soldiers captive.

Three have been executed and the Nusra Front has threatened to kill a fourth in response to the army operation in Tripoli.

The latest fighting erupted after an army raid on a militant hideout last Thursday. The detained leader of the cell has told investigators its plan was to set up a safe haven for Islamist militants in villages near Tripoli, security sources said.

Lebanese officials fear insurgents from the Syrian civil war are trying to expand their influence into Sunni areas of northern Lebanon. With the onset of winter, they see a rising threat from insurgents based in the mountainous border area who may try to open up new supply routes between Syria and Lebanon.

The Syrian war has triggered Lebanon’s worst instability since its own 1975-90 civil war. There have been several bouts of fighting in Tripoli since the Syria war erupted in 2011.

Political conflict has left Lebanon without a president since February when Michel Suleiman’s term expired.

The area taken by the army on Monday included a mosque being used as a base by the gunmen in the Bab al-Tabbaneh district. Hundreds of families left the neighborhood under a humanitarian ceasefire requested by local Sunni leaders.

A brief gunfight ensued as soldiers entered and started to comb the area. Security sources said some of the gunmen may have left with the civilians and others could have gone into hiding.

The fighting, some of the worst Tripoli has seen since the Lebanese civil war, caused damage to parts of the historic Old City. Some shops in the ancient souk had been completely destroyed, said Tawfik Debousi, head of a local trade association. “The whole area is historic,” he said.

The fighting also engulfed areas outside Tripoli near the towns of al-Minya and Bahneen, where at least two soldiers were killed in an ambush. The army used helicopter gunships to fire at militant positions for the first time in recent years.

Fighting in Syria has divided its smaller neighbor along deeper sectarian lines. Hardline Islamists have also won a degree of support among Lebanese Sunnis, though Sunni leaders say such groups have no major backing in Lebanon.

Lebanese security officials say another concern is support for militants among the Syrian refugees who number 1.1 million in Lebanon according to U.N. figures.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam, the most senior Sunni in the Lebanese government, met ministers and security officials on Monday and said “it was necessary to continue the confrontation,” his office said in a statement.

“The government stands united behind the legitimate military security forces in the battle they are fighting to strike the terrorists and restore security to Tripoli and the north.”

Politicians across Lebanon’s political field condemned the violence in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city.

The precise affiliations of all the fighters taking part in the clashes were not immediately clear. Security sources say they include both Lebanese and Syrian supporters of the hardline groups “Islamic State” and the Nusra Front.

The Nusra Front is the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda. 

Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk said in remarks published on Monday that the Tripoli gunmen numbered no more than 200 and were from both Lebanon and Syria.

Many Sunni Syrian rebels and hardline Lebanese Sunni Islamists accuse Lebanon’s army of working with the Hezbollah, which has sent fighters to aid Assad.

The cabinet declared Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood a “disaster-stricken area” on Thursday, following the weekend clashes and allocated $20 million in compensation and reconstruction projects.

“During the session, the prime minister spoke about the Tripoli clashes during which the Army achieved a security milestone, and he spoke about the massive damage to buildings, homes and mosques that were initially inspected,” Information Minister Ramzi Joreige told reporters after the end of the eight-hour session.

“The Cabinet allocated LL30 billion ($20 million) for immediate compensation of citizen and for rehabilitation of damaged neighborhoods.”

“The ministers also agreed that some neighborhoods in Tripoli and Akkar suffer from severe poverty and deprivation and we should resolve such an issue via a development plan.”

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri also announced that he has donated 20 million dollars for reconstruction efforts in northern Lebanon.

“Twenty million dollars have been allocated for the areas affected by the latest clashes in the city of Tripoli – especially Bab al-Tabbaneh — the Bhannine region in Minieh and the rest of northern areas that witnessed military confrontations,” Hariri said in a statement.

“Nothing can compensate the good people in Tripoli and the North for the death and injury of innocent youths, children and women.” 

-Reuters, TAAN, TDS