Wayward Sheep Trigger 2-Day Battle in Lebanon That Kills 6
Sheep wandering into the wrong pasture touched off a two-day sectarian battle in northern Lebanon that left six people dead and 20 wounded, police said Monday.
The Maronite Catholic population of Qoubaiyat township fought the Shia Muslim Jaafar clan in the neighboring village of Shanbook with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, police said.
A police spokesman said a “flock of sheep from Qoubaiyat strayed into pastures claimed by the Jaafars on Saturday, prompting Shia tribesmen to take up arms to drive off the intruding sheep and shepherds.”
Interior Minister Abdullah Rassi said that about 80 Syrian troops intervened at his request to quell the clashes in the area, 70 miles northeast of Beirut.
Two regular Lebanese army soldiers from Qoubaiyat were among the six killed, and three others were among the wounded, police said.
In Christian East Beirut, meanwhile, police said a booby-trapped car exploded near the main entrance to Hotel Dieu Hospital in the Ashrafiyeh area, killing its occupant.
Police said they had no information about the motive for the bombing. But a spokesman for the Lebanese Forces militia, a right-wing Christian group that controls East Beirut, said the target was one of its security offices across the road from the hospital.
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