Lebanon’s Hezbollah motion on Thursday buried considered one of its members who was killed a day earlier when a truck carrying ammunition belonging to the Iran-backed group overturned close to Beirut, sparking clashes.
A whole lot turned out for the funeral of Ahmad Ali Kassas in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, an AFP photographer stated, including that heavy gunfire rang out in the course of the procession.
The workplace of Lebanon’s Defence Minister Maurice Slim stated a bullet hit the minister’s automobile because it handed by a district close to the world, with out harming him.
Ruling out an assassination try, a army supply and a safety supply advised AFP on situation of anonymity that Slim’s car was hit by “a stray bullet” whose origin was unidentified.
Earlier Thursday, the Lebanese military stated it seized munitions from a Hezbollah truck that had overturned within the city of Kahale close to Beirut, resulting in lethal clashes between Christian residents and members of the highly effective Shiite Muslim group.
The violence erupted on Wednesday night after the accident within the city situated within the mountains east of the Lebanese capital, on the street linking it to the Bekaa Valley bordering Syria.
Kahale mayor Abboud Abi Khalil advised AFP that residents had surrounded the truck demanding to know what was inside, earlier than Hezbollah members escorting it opened fireplace and killed considered one of them.
Hezbollah stated considered one of its members was shot and later died of his wounds.
“Quite a few armed males… current within the space gathered and attacked” these escorting the truck, a Hezbollah assertion stated Wednesday.
“They started by throwing rocks, after which opened fireplace,” the group added.
Hezbollah supporters posted footage on social media exhibiting Kassas wearing army fatigues in Syria, the place Hezbollah has been preventing on the facet of President Bashar al-Assad within the nation’s civil struggle that erupted in 2011.
The military confirmed in a press release on Thursday that two individuals had been killed and stated ammunition had been seized from the truck.
“The cargo of the truck has been transported to a army centre, and an investigation has been opened by the competent judicial authorities,” it added.
The military stated its troops had eliminated the truck at daybreak and reopened the Beirut-Damascus street which Kahale residents had blocked in protest.
Hezbollah is the one Lebanese faction that saved its weapons after the top of the 1975-1990 civil struggle. It’s thought-about a “terrorist” organisation by many Western governments.
In August 2021, offended residents of a primarily Druze village in southern Lebanon stopped a truck carrying a rocket launcher utilized by Hezbollah in an assault on Israel, accusing the Shiite motion of endangering civilian lives.
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