Antoine AmriehMisbah al-Ali| The Daily Star

TRIPOLI, Lebanon: The Lebanese Army, backed by armored vehicles, deployed heavily in Tripoli Friday to maintain calm in the northern city, a day after police dealt a major blow to Islamist militants, killing two and arresting an extremist preacher.

Police shot dead notorious Islamist militant Osama Mansour and one of his partners in Tripoli Thursday night during an operation to arrest Sheikh Khaled Hoblos, a radical preacher accused of heading an anti-Army militia based in the town of Bhannin, a few kilometers north of Tripoli, the Internal Security Forces said in a statement Friday.

However, a security source told The Daily Star that the police had been monitoring the militants’ communications, including cell phones, WhatsApp and social media, over the last 10 days, and sent a strike force to arrest them Thursday once they discovered their location.

“As an ISF Information Branch patrol was trying to arrest Sheikh Khaled Hoblos, who was inside a Kia Picanto vehicle driven by Amir al-Kirdi, an Opel vehicle with two men inside approached the site, and the person sitting beside the driver opened fire on the patrol, slightly wounding two policemen,” the ISF statement said.

During the 10:25 p.m. shooting in Tripoli’s Bab al-Raml neighborhood, the patrol members returned fire, killing the two men, while Hoblos and Kirdi were arrested, it said.

“The dead men turned out to be Osama Mansour and Ahmad Nazer,” it said, indicating that the operation did not target the militants.

According to the statement, Mansour, who opened fire on the patrol, had in his possession an explosive belt that a military expert dismantled.

Both Mansour and Nazer had been wanted for taking part in clashes with the Army in Tripoli in October 2014 and were suspected of links to jihadi groups in Syria.

Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said the Information Branch members had to fire back after they were shot at by the militants. He vowed authorities would hunt down wanted criminals and terror suspects throughout Lebanon.

“The shooting or killing had not been decided. What happened is that the wanted man opened fire on the Information Branch [patrol], which had to return fire, resulting in the killing of the two men and wounding of two Information Branch heroes,” he said.

“We will not leave any accused or any person wanted by the judiciary on any Lebanese territories, namely in the south, the southern suburbs or the northern Bekaa,” Machnouk told reporters after visiting the two wounded policemen in a hospital in Ashrafieh. “Terrorism has no sect, religion or state.”

Lebanese troops and police increased patrols in Tripoli and its suburbs, setting up arbitrary checkpoints, especially in streets leading to the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood, where Mansour and Nazer were buried later Friday following a funeral attended by dozens of mourners.

Security forces had also blocked the road around the government-run hospital in Tripoli’s Qibbeh, where the bodies of Mansour and Nazer were held. Security forces went on high alert in Bab al-Tabbaneh before the funeral procession. Before Thursday’s operation, rumors swirled in Tripoli about a new round of fighting in the city and that Mansour and Hoblos were preparing for suicide attacks against Lebanese Army outposts and some civilian targets in the mainly-Alawite Jabal Mohsen neighborhood.

The Army implemented a government security plan in April 2014 in an effort to stabilize Tripoli, which has been rocked by deadly rounds of fighting between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Army also fought deadly battles with Islamist militants in and around Tripoli for several days last October.

A security source in Tripoli contradicted the ISF statement, telling The Daily Star the Opel had sped away after the shooting.

The source said Mansour, who was sentenced to death last year in absentia over an August 2014 attack in Tripoli, and Nazer, himself wanted over terrorism charges, were killed after a police chase that ended near a Lebanese Army position in Tripoli’s Mitain Street.

The two men were killed after coming under heavy fire by police and soldiers from each side, the source said. The source told The Daily Star Mansour was carrying a fake identity card in the name of Khaled al-Junaidi.

Mansour, who was close to Lebanon’s top Islamist fugitive Shadi Mawlawi, was wanted over plotting several attacks against the Army in Tripoli. He also took part in clashes between the neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.

Mansour and Mawlawi are believed to have links with the Nusra Front, Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate.

Hoblos has been pursued by security forces for allegedly orchestrating attacks against the Army. The Army has labeled the preacher a “terrorist.”

A security source in Beirut said that preliminary investigations suggested that the militants were attempting to regroup their forces following the Army’s October crackdown on Islamist militants in Tripoli.

However, the militants lacked the logistical capabilities that would allow for a large-scale operation, the source said.

Meanwhile, a group of Tripoli’s Salafist sheikhs questioned the morality of a police operation that led to the death of Mansour and Nazer.

The Muslim Scholars Committee said in a statement that it rejected the beliefs and methods of the militants, but also rejected the principle of targeted killings before trial.

The committee called on the justice and interior ministries to allow human rights organizations to carry out investigations that would determine whether the militants were killed as a result of a premeditated operation by security forces, or due to an unexpected shootout as police said.

It warned that the “double standard” that has allowed for criminals in the Bekaa region and Brital to escape while others were denied trial would not help preserve civil peace in the country. – With additional reporting by Youssef Diab