Islamic Action Front Official Shot Dead in Bahsa in Tripoli
Islamic Action Front official Saadeddine Ghiyyeh was killed on Tuesday after sustaining gunshots wounds to his head.
According to state-run National News Agency, masked men opened fire at Ghiyyeh in al-Bahsa in the northern city of Tripoli.
The news agency reported that two men on a motorcycle shot Ghiyyeh, who was in his car, in the head.
He was submitted to the hospital in a critical condition with media outlets reporting his death later on.
Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) reported that the Lebanese army swiftly cordoned off and deployed in the area to halt any negative repercussions to the incident.
In September, a bomb exploded in the car of the 43-year-old Ghiyyeh after he parked it in al-Qobba area in the northern city.
The explosion only caused material damage.
The Islamic Action Front is an umbrella grouping of pro-Syrian regime Sunni groups in Lebanon.
Head of Islamic Tawhid Movement-Command Council Sheikh Hashem Minkara, who is close to Ghiyyeh, denounced the Islamic official's death.
He called on the Lebanese state to reveal those who are responsible for the attack and end the security chaos in Tripoli.
“The assaults against Islamic figures and Ulemas in the north were enough... The killing of Ghiyyeh was on the hands of mercenaries, who don't have a religion,” Minkara told reporters.
He considered that the incident comes as a result of the strong rhetoric of some figures.
“Ghiyyeh's fate will become the fate of all those who are pro or anti (Syria),” Minkara added.
“We should all realize the critical stage that the country is passing through,” he stressed, urging all sides “to return to the voice of reason.”
Later on Tuesday, caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told radio Voice of Lebanon that concerned authorities have started investigating the incident.
"We have questioned several detainees over Ghiyyeh's assassination and we gathered some clues that can be used in investigation," he said.
Charbel pointed out, however, that the killing of the Tripoli figure has political links and "is not an assassination."
Tripoli is regularly the scene of violence between its Sunni majority and a minority of Alawites -- the religious community from which Syria's President Bashar Assad hails.
Violence has usually pitted the Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which backs the Syrian uprising, against the neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, which is populated by Alawites.
The Syrian uprising, which pits a Sunni-dominated rebellion against the Assad government, has inflamed existing sectarian tensions in Lebanon.
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