Three wanted Tripoli fighters turn themselves in

The Lebanese Armed Forces command issued a statement on Wednesday, whereby it said that on Tuesday May 13th, three persons wanted for being involved in the Tripoli clashes, turned themselves in to the LAF Intelligence Directorate.

The men, who were identified as Mohammad Jamal Nheili, Zakaria Mohammad Jomaa and Ahmad Taha al-Hajjar, are undergoing interrogations under the supervision of the concerned judiciary.

Last week, wanted Tripoli militant chiefs handed themselves over to the Lebanese army Intelligence, and were identified as Ziad Allouki, Saad al-Masri, Omar Mhaych and Khaled al-Qawwas.

Ziad Allouki, who is a local militia commander from Bab al-Tabbaneh, is an opponent of Refaat Ali Eid, the head of the Arab Democratic Party, dominant in the northern city's Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen.

Allouki had accused Eid of being behind two explosions that rocked Tripoli in August, killing 47 people and wounding several others.

Early last month, the Lebanese army started implementing, in cooperation with the security apparatuses, a security plan in Lebanon's northern city upon the directives of the cabinet.This plan has so far succeeded in implementing peace in the area as well as lead to the arrest of several axis leaders.

Cabinet had tasked the army and security forces with controlling the security situation in Tripoli and the eastern Bekaa Valley in areas bordering Syria.Disputes from neighboring Syria's civil war frequently inflame sectarian grievances in Tripoli.

These clashes pit gunmen from both the mostly Sunni Bab Tabbaneh district that supports that uprising in Syria, and the Jabal Mohsen district which mostly comprises residents of Syrian President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect, a Shiite Islam offshoot.