Warily, Lebanon tackles violent spillover from Syria

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By Alexander Dziadosz TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - For two weeks now, the rifles have been silent along Syria Street in Lebanon's Tripoli, an area shot up so often that even memorial posters of men killed just a few months ago are speckled with bullet holes. Soldiers patrol quiet streets where gunmen used to fight day and night - part of the Lebanese authorities' most serious effort yet to contain spillover from Syria's civil war since the three-year-old conflict began in its much larger neighbor. "Traffic is returning, the area is coming back to life," said Ahmed Qashour, 57, raising his voice as armored vehicles rumbled past the tahini sesame-paste shop where he works on Syria Street, in the north of the Mediterranean port city. "But what we want, what we're asking of the government, is that this security plan continues - that it doesn't stop." Syria's civil war has divided Lebanon's politicians, while gunbattles, car bombs and rocket attacks linked to Syria have killed scores of Lebanese and revived memories of the country's own 15-year civil war that formally ended in 1990.




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