Soldier Killed in Attack on Army Barracks in al-Beddawi

A Lebanese soldier was killed on Tuesday after gunmen opened fire on an army post in al-Beddawi near the northern city of Tripoli, the military announced.

An army communique said troops responded to the 4:00 am attack by opening fire on the perpetrators, adding that military units were pursuing them to arrest them.

Local TV and radio stations said two other soldiers were injured in the attack and taken to al-Qobbe hospital in Tripoli.

They identified the dead soldier as Mohammed Hussein.

The attack most likely came in retaliation to the army's clampdown on terrorists on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

The Sunni militants from al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State group have taken soldiers and policemen as hostage and have killed three of them.

The spillover from the Syrian war has raised sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where Sunnis and Shiites back opposing sides of the neighboring conflict.

The militants have been trying to punish the Iranian-backed Shiite Hizbullah because its fighters are battling alongside forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

They have claimed responsibility for bombings in Lebanon that have targeted Shiite communities. But they have also increasingly targeted the Lebanese army itself, seeing it as aligned with Hizbullah fighters.

Some Lebanese Sunnis complain that the army is biased, because it has only cracked down on Sunni militants heading to Syria, and not on Hizbullah fighters.