Al-Rahi Postpones Tripoli Visit over Tension

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi postponed his visit to the northern port city of Tripoli over last week’s bloody clashes between two rival neighborhoods.

The Tripoli bishopric said Tuesday that the postponement of the visit that was scheduled to take place on Saturday and Sunday came to allow “the city to lick its wounds after the latest confrontations that it witnessed.”

Al-Rahi held a telephone conversation with Tripoli Mufti Sheikh Malek al-Shaar over the issue, it said.

The bishopric did not specify when the patriarch’s pastoral visit to the city would take place.

The majority Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh and mainly Alawite Jabal Mohsen witnessed two days of gunbattles last Friday, when gunmen from the two sides clashed, leaving at least three people dead.

Although the army interfered to prevent the clashes from spiraling, they lasted until Saturday afternoon when Tripoli’s lawmakers enforced a ceasefire.

The fighting was a sign that the Syrian crisis spilled over to Lebanon given that Syrian President Bashar Assad is from the Alawite sect.