Civilians pay the price in Abra

 Although much has been reported of the loss of life during the recent fighting between Sunni fighters ant the Lebanese army in Saida (read more about it here), thanks to Hisham, the guy pictured below, I was able to visit the homes of some Abra residents who had been caught in the crossfire.
See the video below to get a good idea of how some of the damage was caused. The guys in the video are firing from the hillside shown in the last picture posted.

Protests and potshots in Tripoli

A new sight for me at the Sunni anti-Assad protests in Tripoli (that'll be the Lebanese one) on Friday was a small female contingent, albeit separated from the male demonstrators by a rather stern chaperone.

 Following the protests, fighting erupted between militias in two neighbouring yet warring districts of the city. The hardline Sunni/Salafi and Alawite communities have been at each others' throats since the civil war but things are heating up here as it's now a sectarian microcosm for the fighting across the border in Syria. More about that from the tweets of the talented Mr. Joshua Wood here and the BBC. Sadly I filed too late too make the Reuters deadline, dammit.

Apologies for the watermarks but it's still an ongoing news story and bloggers are fond of stealing pictures and not attributing them.    

A sunni milita man runs beneath a Free Syrian Army flag as he heads toward the fighting.

Streets empty as gunfire rings out.

Tripoli residents cautiously peer down the street at Bab al-Tabbaneh, the Sunni neighbourhood  involved in the fighting.

Salafis and strikes: Cairo

Egypt's Salafis are a conundrum. They resent their portrayal by Egyptian and Western media as

 bogeymen intent on taking over the world, then tell you that, in as much, this is exactly what they'd like to see happen.  The Salafis we met were very welcoming and certainly knew a thing or two about how to eat a sheep; rest assured, should a global caliphate arise it'll likely come with more good food than you can shake a Quoran at.  Intrepid reporter Sarah Lynch will have a far more insightful view on this whole situation in next month's Esquire Middle East and an insight into the economic effects of labour strikes in Egypt in next month's Executive.