Tripoli welcomes Lebanese militant with celebratory gunfire

Earlier in the day, state-run TV in Damascus said authorities have handed over to Beirut a Lebanese fighter captured inside Syria in an ambush by government troops.               

Hassan Srour had been in held in Syria since Nov. 30, when a group of Lebanese fighters were ambushed by Syrian troops shortly after crossing the border to join the rebels fighting against President Bachar Assad's regime.                  

Lebanese officials said at the time that 17 gunmen were killed in the ambush.                      

Lebanon is sharply split along sectarian lines, and Syria's civil war has exacerbated those divisions among supporters and opponents of Assad.                      

The divisions are a legacy of the nearly three decades when Damascus all but ruled Lebanon until withdrawing troops in 2005.                      

On the 30th of November 2012, reports emerged saying that a number of Lebanese nationals died in a Syrian ambush in the bordering town of Talkalakh.                    

At least 14 Lebanese and Palestinian gunmen from north Lebanon were reportedly killed, with three wounded and detained in the ambush. Syrian state television aired a graphic video of the dead men, riddled with gunshot wounds and lying in the grass.                          


REUTERS/LBCI