A protester holds up a photo of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir on Feb. 10, 2026, in North Lebanon. (Photo shared by our North Lebanon correspondent, Michel Hallak)
BEIRUT — Several relatives of Islamist detainees held in Lebanese prisons blocked the North Lebanon highway at Beddawi on Tuesday morning, demanding a general amnesty for these prisoners, our correspondent in the region reported.
Some protesters held up photos of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, who was arrested in 2015 for leading deadly clashes in 2013 against the Lebanese Army in Abra, a suburb of Saida. Assir was sentenced to death for these events, and to 20 years of hard labor by the military tribunal for additional fighting in North Lebanon. The clashes took place against the backdrop of Hezbollah's intervention in Syria alongside Bashar al-Assad's regime, and heightened tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon.
The road closure caused a traffic jam more than a kilometer long in both directions. Security forces and the army are working to reopen the road.
This protest comes on the same day as an official agreement was signed between Lebanon and Syria to transfer about 300 Syrian detainees, who have been convicted and held in Lebanon's overcrowded prisons.
