During seven days in late May in Lebanon, gun battles between rival sectarian factions in the streets of Tripoli killed at least 20 people and injured more than 170.
In Beirut on May 25, two rockets hit a car-sales yard and an apartment building in the Hezbollah-controlled neighborhood of the Chiah district after Shi’ite Hezbollah leader Sayyad Hassan Nasrallah declared that the Lebanese Hezbollah fighters would back the government of President Bashar Assad in Syria. Five people were wounded.
Because of the history of Syrian involvement during and after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war (1975-1991), there are competing factions within Lebanon supporting either the Syrian government or the Syrian insurgents.
The Lebanese government is trying to keep a policy of “dissociation” from the Syrian civil war, but it may be drawn further into the conflict as it struggles to control the sectarian violence, deal with Hezbollah, help the more than 480,000 Syrian refugees and curb the flow of arms, aid and fighters through its border towns into Syria.