diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 533e3a54..e2d28e0c 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+  - fixed removal of leading/trailing newlines in {strip}-blocks (messju)
   - fixed proper escaping of " and ' with escape:javascript (messju)
   - fixed bug in traversal of $smarty->plugins_dir-array. now the
     first matching plugin is taken (messju)
diff --git a/libs/Smarty_Compiler.class.php b/libs/Smarty_Compiler.class.php
index 2d6481ba..2fc8a90d 100644
--- a/libs/Smarty_Compiler.class.php
+++ b/libs/Smarty_Compiler.class.php
@@ -335,7 +335,7 @@ class Smarty_Compiler extends Smarty {
             $strip_tags = $_match[0];
             $_strip_search = array(
                 '%([^\\\\]\?>)\n%', // remove newlines after PHP close tags
-                "!{$ldq}/?strip{$rdq}|[\t ]+$|^[\t ]+!m", // remove leading/trailing space chars
+                "!{$ldq}/?strip{$rdq}|\s+$|^\s+!m", // remove leading/trailing space chars
                 '%[\r\n]+%m', // remove CRs and newlines
                 '%([^\\\\]\?>)%'); // replace newlines after PHP close tags
             $_strip_replace = array(