Two Lebanese army officers and 14 soldiers were killed on Sunday [June 23] near Sidon, southern Lebanon's largest city, The Associated Press reported.

A number of fundamentalist Sunni militants affiliated with Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir attacked a Lebanese army checkpoint in the area of Abra, a stronghold of Assir where the mosque from which he leads his Sunni Salafist movement is located.

The movement led by Assir has been causing tension, concern and insecurity in this sensitive area situated at the entrance to southern Lebanon, and along the highway that links the south to the country's capital, Beirut.

The Assir phenomenon began two years ago, with a series of sermons delivered by the Sunni Salafist preacher against the Shiite Hezbollah party and Christian forces. His escalatory stances won him a fundamentalist Sunni popular base in the city. Subsequently, Assir blocked the highway in Sidon in July 2012 for a whole month, under the slogan of “rejection of the arms of Hezbollah.” The highway was reopened on Aug. 1, 2012, under political and popular pressure.