Sectarian tensions spilling across the border into Lebanon are threatening to undermine the country’s fragile institutions, with a top Sunni cleric this week accusing the country’s military of collaborating with the Iran-backed Shiite terror group Hezbollah against Lebanese Sunnis.

“The Iranian scheme aims at sliding us into a confrontation with the Army and some of the soldiers, at the behest of Iran, fought Sunni youth,” said Rafei after a meeting of Salafist sheikhs at Tripoli’s Dar al-Fatwa in the north of the country.

“The Army is plotting with Hezbollah to fight Sunni youth,” he added.

The comments, made by Sheikh Salem Rafei, came in the aftermath of clashes in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, where the Syrian opposition forces battling to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad enjoy deep support. Hundreds of injured Syrian rebels have fled to the city in recent weeks.

Rafei’s accusations come in the wake of other reports that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) was backed by Hezbollah in a raid on a militant Sunni cleric that left more than a dozen people dead and over 100 wounded.

[Photo: Georgia National Guard / Flickr]