Three soldiers died in a clash with supporters of anti-Hezbollah sheik Ahmed al-Assir in Lebanon. Source: AAP
TWELVE soldiers have been killed in clashes with supporters of a radical Sunni cleric in southern Lebanon, the army says, in violence tied to rising sectarian tensions fanned by the Syrian conflict.
The fighting began on Sunday on the outskirts of the city of Sidon and intensified on Monday morning, witnesses and local media said, spreading to parts of the nearby Palestinian Ain al-Helweh camp.
It is the worst violence to hit Lebanon since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, which has exacerbated sectarian tensions in the country, particularly between Shi'ite supporters of the Syrian regime, and Sunni backers of the uprising.
The Lebanese press warned that the country "finds itself before a decisive test", evoking the spectre of the civil war that devastated the nation between 1975 and 1990.
The violence in Sidon began when supporters of Salafi cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir opened fire on an army checkpoint on Sunday afternoon.
Witnesses said the fighting had intensified on Monday, reporting heavy gunfire and the sound of mortar and rocket fire in the Abra neighbourhood on the eastern outskirts of the coastal city.
"The clashes are very violent, we can hear intense rocket fire and gunfire every few minutes," an Abra resident told AFP.
An army spokesman told AFP that 12 soldiers had been killed since the fighting began on Sunday, and medical sources reported at least 35 wounded, mostly civilians.
A source close to Assir said at least five of his supporters had been killed in the fighting.
Assir's brother told AFP that the cleric and his supporters were inside Abra's Bilal Bin Rabah mosque, where Assir preaches, with the National News Agency saying the army was "metres" away.
"There has been a decision taken to finish us off, but we're resisting up until now," Amjad al-Assir told AFP by phone.
"Sheikh Assir will stay in the mosque until the last drop of blood."
Assir was a virtual unknown before the conflict in Syria began in March 2011, but has made headlines for his vocal criticism of Lebanon's Shi'ite group Hezbollah, and its alliance with the Syrian regime.
He has accused the Lebanese army of backing the powerful movement and turning a blind eye to both its weapons and its dispatch of fighters to battle alongside Syrian troops against rebel forces.
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