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Heavy fighting again breaks out in Lebanon
Beirut (Lebanon)—Heavy fighting broke out between
pro- and anti-government supporters in northern Lebanon amid the
country’s power struggle, security officials said Sunday.
Beirut, for four days the focus of bloody sectarian clashes between
Sunnis and Shiites, spent a quiet night. However, many of its roads
remained blocked, including the one to the airport, by the ongoing
civil disobedience campaign of the opposition.
The heaviest clashes took place in the northern city of Tripoli,
where pro-government supporters in the Tebaneh neighborhood
exchanged rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine gun fire with
opposition followers in Jabal Muhsin, the officials said.
One woman was killed in the clashes, bringing the toll across the
country for the past five days of violence to 38 — the worst
sectarian violence since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. The fighting
in the north intensified in the early hours Sunday but the situation
calmed down later as Lebanese troops began deploying, said the
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak to the media.
At midday, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and some of his ministers and
staff members held a moment of silence at the government building in
honor of people killed in the violence. A nearby downtown church
tolled its bells to mark the moment.
Meanwhile, Muslim West Beirut has been mostly calm since Hezbollah
and its allies seized control of many neighborhoods Friday from
Sunnis loyal to the government.
In the eastern Bekaa Valley, sporadic clashes took place between the
two groups in different towns and villages. The road leading to the
main border crossing point with Syria was still closed by
pro-government supporters in retaliation for the opposition’s
closure of the airport road.
Arab foreign ministers were to meet in Egypt on Sunday to try to
find a solution to the latest deadly crisis. The political standoff
turned into clashes after the government confronted Hezbollah
earlier in the week, saying it would sack the chief of airport
security for alleged ties to Hezbollah and declared the group’s
private telephone network illegal and a threat to state security.
Lebanese troops patrolled Beirut on Sunday after Hezbollah fighters
pulled back from areas they had seized in gun battles with
supporters of the U.S.-backed government. Hundreds of soldiers
backed by armored vehicles set up roadblocks and took up positions
on the streets of the mainly Muslim part of the capital.
There were no gunmen in sight but youths maintained barricades on
some crucial roads, ensuring Beirut’s air and sea ports remained
closed. The Hezbollah-led opposition said it would maintain a
campaign of “civil disobedience” until all its demands were met.
Hezbollah, a political group backed by Iran and Syria and which has
a guerrilla army, said on Saturday it was ending its armed presence
in Beirut after the army overturned government decisions against
it.—Agencies
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