TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - Five people were killed and more than 50 wounded in overnight clashes in Tripoli between Lebanese gunmen backing rival factions in Syria's civil war, doctors and security sources said on Thursday. Tripoli has suffered sporadic sectarian violence since the Sunni Muslim-led uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March 2011, but after a night of mortar, grenade and machinegun fire, residents said this was the fiercest so far.

French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron Wednesday said they would seek European support for their proposal to arm the Syrian opposition to fight regime forces. "We are prepared to lift the arms embargo further so that the opposition can present themselves as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people," Cameron told reporters during a brief stopover in Paris on the way back from Brussels.

Forty Syrian soldiers and pro-regime militiamen were killed in fighting with rebels on Wednesday around an army camp near the town of Nayrab in the northwestern province of Idlib, a watchdog reported. "The fighting has killed 14 from the rebel side and not less than 40 among the soldiers of the regular army and members of the Popular Committees (pro-regime militia)," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rebels took control of the army camp, which was "one of the most important bastions of the regime in the Idlib region," it added. bur/feb/jds/kir

The Damascus regime's ambassador to Jordan lashed out on Wednesday at a meeting of supporters of the uprising in his country, describing it as a gathering of "enemies of Syria". "It is a meeting of Syria's enemies, or friends of Israel," Bahjat Suleiman said in a rare news conference hours before the "Friends of Syria" group meets in Amman to discuss a US-Russian proposal for peace talks. "Those who want to end the tragedy in Syria need to stop arming and training terrorist gangs in Syria. The war on Syria is unprecedented."