BEIRUT, April 8 (Reuters) - A Lebanese army officer and another soldier were killed on Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on their patrol in Lebanon's northern Akkar province, security and medical sources said.
A third soldier was wounded in the attack at an army checkpoint near the village of Fneideq, east of the Mediterranean port city of Tripoli.
The army has launched a crackdown in Tripoli after at least 27 people were killed there last month in violence fuelled by sectarian tensions over the civil war in neighbouring Syria.
Minority Alawites in Tripoli, who support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have clashed with Sunnis who back the rebels battling to end four decades of Assad family rule. Sunni gunmen have also clashed with troops trying to quell the violence.
Lebanon, which hosts a million refugees from the conflict next door, has also seen violence spill over the border from Syria with bombings in Beirut, fighting in Tripoli, and rocket attacks on Bekaa Valley towns close to the frontier.
(Reporting by Nazih Siddiq; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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