Salam Meets Tripoli MPs: We Seek to Adopt Comprehensive Security, Economic Plan for City
Prime Minister Tammam Salam stressed on Tuesday that officials reject the concept of “consensual security” in Tripoli in light of the recent unrest in the northern city.
He said after meeting with lawmakers from Tripoli: “The gatherers requested that I propose before cabinet the adoption of a comprehensive security, economic, and development plan for the city and deprived northern regions.”
“I assure that the government, after it receives parliament's vote of confidence, will seriously follow up on this issue in order to restore Tripoli's stature,” he remarked after the meeting attended by former Premier Najib Miqati.
“We must end oppression and negligence in the city and support security there, as well as economic measures that will revitalize the city,” Salam stated from the Grand Serail.
Tripoli should not remain victim to lawlessness “as it has always acted as a beacon in its surroundings thanks to its residents, who seek to earn a living through peace and stability,” added the prime minister.
Fighting renewed in Tripoli on Tuesday morning, shattering a brief morning calm after a night of sniper attacks and intermittent gunfire between the warring parties, the state-run National News Agency reported.
NNA and local TV stations said several mortars landed near Lebanese army positions and the sound of machineguns reverberated across al-Omari, grocery market and al-Nasseri mosque areas.
It said Ali Hussein Abdullah was severely injured in the neck.
The agency had earlier reported that gunmen from the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen clashed on Monday night using machineguns and resorted to sniper fire.
The Lebanese army responded to the sources of fire, it said.
Al-Liwaa daily quoted a cabinet minister as saying that Tuesday's meeting at the Grand Serail could be followed by a meeting of the Higher Defense Council at Baabda Palace.
The international highway that links Tripoli with the northern district of Akkar was on Tuesday open and witnessing limited traffic, NNA said.
Schools and shops that lie relatively far from the hotspots were also open, the agency added.
The latest fighting, which left scores of casualties, broke out on Thursday after a Jabal Mohsen man was killed by unknown gunmen on a motorbike in central Tripoli.
The clashes are linked to the civil war in neighboring Syria. Jabal Mohsen residents are Alawites from Syrian President Bashar Assad's sect, while Bab al-Tabbaneh is majority Sunni.
The rebels seeking to topple Assad in the three-year-old war are Sunnis.
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