4 left dead in 2nd day of violence in Lebanon
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/225136/
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Running gunbattles raged in parts of Beirut on Thursday after the leader of Hezbollah accused Lebanon’s Western-backed government of declaring war on his Shiite militant group. At least four people were killed and eight wounded in the capital.
Factions erected roadblocks and checkpoints dividing Beirut into sectarian enclaves on the second day of clashes between Sunni Muslims loyal to the government and Shiite supporters of Hezbollah.
A top Sunni leader went on television urging Hezbollah to pull its fighters back and “save Lebanon from hell.” The army, which has stayed out of the sectarian political squabbling that has paralyzed the country for more than a year, did not intervene in the battles.
The chattering of automatic weapons and thumps of exploding rocket-propelled grenades echoed across Beirut. People huddled in hallways or staircases as gunmen rushed from one street corner to the next firing at their foes. Some families fled.
Fighting began along Corniche Mazraa, an avenue separating Shiite and Sunni areas, then spread to other districts. Combat was heard near the office of Lebanon’s Sunni spiritual leader, an ally of the government, and near the official residence of the opposition-aligned parliament speaker.
In peaceful neighborhoods, people jammed into supermarkets rushing to stockpile food while outside gunmen with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades peered from building entrances or took cover next to shuttered shops.
Soldiers patrolled in armored personnel carriers trying to keep the warring factions apart. Burning car tires and vehicles, debris and dirt were used to barricade streets.
The unrest virtually shut down Lebanon’s international airport for a second day and barricades blocked major highways. Hezbollah first blocked roads in Beirut on Wednesday to enforce a strike called by labor unions, but confrontations quickly spread across the city.
Security officials said Thursday night that a mother and her son were killed when a grenade hit their apartment, and two men were shot dead during the Beirut fighting. Eight people were wounded in the city and four more were wounded in a Sunni-Shiite gunbattle in the eastern Bekaa Valley, officials said.
Fighting intensified minutes after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a televised address charging that the government had declared war on his group when it decided this week to shut down Hezbollah’s private telecommunications network.
He warned against trying to disarm Hezbollah and said his fighters would retaliate swiftly if attacked.
“Those who try to arrest us, we will arrest them. Those who shoot at us, we will shoot at them. The hand raised against us, we will cut it off,” Nasrallah said in a news conference via video link from his hiding place.
Later in the day, Sunni politician Saad Hariri made a televised appeal to Nasrallah seeking to calm the conflict. Information for this article was contributed by Hussein Dakroub and Bassem Mroue of The Associated Press.