BEIRUT — Lebanese troops battled heavily armed followers of a hard-line Sunni cleric holed up in a mosque complex in a southern port city Monday, the second day of fighting that has left at least 16 soldiers dead, the military said.
The clashes in Sidon, Lebanon's third-largest city, are the latest bout of violence in Lebanon linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria.
They are the bloodiest yet involving the army and are seen as a test for the state in containing extremist armed groups that have taken up the cause of the warring sides in Syria. The civil war next door has been bleeding into Lebanon, following similar sectarian lines of Sunni and Shiite camps.
The fierce fight that the followers of Sheik Ahmad al-Assir were putting up showed how aggressive Sunni extremists have grown in Lebanon, building on anger not only at Syria's regime but also its Shiite allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah. The two days of fighting have transformed Sidon, which had been largely spared the violence plaguing border areas near Syria, into a combat zone.