“The UAE Foreign Ministry has urged citizens not to travel to Lebanon until the tense security situation there is cleared,” according to a statement carried on state news agency WAM.

The measure has been taken “to guarantee the safety of its citizens,” Director of the Department of Citizens Affairs at the Foreign Ministry in the statement.

Kalbani also called on “citizens currently in Lebanon to leave the country, and in case they have to stay back for any unavoidable reasons, to contact the UAE embassy in Beirut” to give their whereabouts and contact details.

Qatar issued a similar warning due to the unsteady security situation in Lebanon, news agency QNA reported.

Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister Adnan Mansour urged Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) embassies to reconsider their travel warning in Lebanon due to the deteriorating security situation there, the National News Agency reported.

Secterian clashes between the Sunni and Alawite communities in Tripol over the past week, which have left 10 people dead, has been fueled by the uprising sweeping Syria since MArch 2011 and the arrival in the area of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing the violence in their country.

Clashes broke out last weekend after the arrest of a Sunni Islamist on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization. His supporters say he was targeted for helping Syrian refugees.

The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam to which Syria’s Assad belongs to.