BEIRUT
Al-Nusra Front, one of several militant movements fighting against the regime in Syria, on Saturday claimed responsibility for two attacks that rocked a café in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli earlier in the day, leaving nine people dead and 35 others injured.
A front leader told The Anadolu Agency that two militants had been sent to Jebel Mohsen, the predominantly Alawite neighborhood, where the two attacks took place, to carry out the attacks.
The leader identified the two militants as Taha Khayal and Belal Ibrahim.
"The two were trained by the front in Al-Qalamoun on the border between Lebanon and Syria," the leader said.
He added that they were then sent to Tripoli to carry out the attacks.
The Al-Nusra Front leader said the attacks came in response to the campaign carried out by Alawites against Sunnis in Syria.
He added that the front would issue a statement later to clarify the details of the operation.
A security source, meanwhile, told AA that Khayal was born in Tripoli in 1994. He added that the man had disappeared for some time in the past before Saturday's attacks took place.
The source added that Ibrahim was a resident of Bab al-Tabbaneh, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in close proximity to Jebel Mohsen.
Earlier in the day, nine people were killed and 35 others injured in two attacks inside a café in Jebel Mohsen.
Lebanon has in recent months run into the Syrian quagmire when Al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, another militant organization fighting in Syria, clashed against its army in the eastern town of Arsal and captured several troops.
