Hezbollah To Withdraw Fighters In Beirut, But Violence Spreads Elsewhere
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Hezbollah said Saturday it was withdrawing its gunmen from Beirut neighborhoods seized in sectarian clashes after the army ordered its troops to establish security and called on fighters to clear the streets.
But while tensions in the capital appeared to be defusing, violence spread to other parts of the country.
At least 12 people were killed and 20 wounded when pro- and anti- government groups fought in a remote region of northern Lebanon, Lebanese security and hospital officials said.
It was the heaviest toll for a single clash since sectarian fighting began on Wednesday. At least 37 people have been killed in four days of clashes.
Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies seized large swaths of Muslim west Beirut Friday, demonstrating their military might in a power struggle with the U.S.-backed government. It was the worst sectarian violence since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
The clashes broke out after the government challenged Hezbollah by declaring its private telephone network illegal and saying it would remove the chief of airport security for suspected ties to Shiite militant group.
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said the decisions amounted to a declaration of war and he demanded they be revoked. His Shiite forces then overran Beirut neighborhoods, routing Sunni supporters of the government.
Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, in his first public statement since the sectarian violence erupted, said Lebanon can no longer tolerate Hezbollah having weapons. He called on the army to restore law and order and remove gunmen from the streets. He also accused Hezbollah of staging a coup and besieging the capital.
The dream of democracy in Lebanon has been dealt “a poisonous stab by the armed coup carried out by Hezbollah and its allies,” he said.
After Saniora’s speech, the army called for gunmen to withdraw from the streets of Beirut and reopen blocked roads. It ordered army units “to continue to take measures on the ground to establish security and spread state authority and arrest the violators.”
Saniora said he would leave it up to the army to resolve the fight over the airport security chief and the Hezbollah telephone network.
The army offered Hezbollah a compromise, saying the airport security chief would not be sacked and recommending the government revoke its decision to declare the communications network illegal.
The army has largely stayed out of the fighting, fearing its forces could break apart on sectarian lines as they did during the civil war. The army command is respected by Hezbollah.
An opposition statement said its forces will withdraw all their gunmen from Beirut in compliance with the army request.
But it said a “civil disobedience” campaign will continue until its demands are met. The statement did not say whether Hezbollah forces would remove roadblocks around Beirut including one cutting off access to the airport since Wednesday.
Muslim west Beirut appeared mostly calm a day after Hezbollah and its allies seized large parts of the area. Most Hezbollah gunmen had pulled out, leaving small bands of their Shiite Amal allies to patrol the streets.
In other parts of the country, however, violence appeared to be intensifying.
Fighters loyal to Sunni parliament majority leader Saad Hariri and the government battled the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, a secular pro- Syrian group allied with Hezbollah. The clash broke out in the town of Halba in a remote Sunni region of northernmost Lebanon.
At least 12 gunmen were killed and 20 wounded, Lebanese security and hospital officials said. The pro-government fighters stormed the office of the SSNP and set it ablaze after the gunbattle. Nine of the dead were SSNP and three were government loyalists, the security officials said.
Both they and the hospital officials spoke on customary condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In a mountain town east of Beirut, Hezbollah accused a pro-government Druse group of kidnapping three of its members and killing two of them.
Eight people were killed near the town of Aley late Friday in clashes between government supporters and opponents. Another civilian died in the clashes in the southern city of Sidon.
Earlier Saturday in Tarik Jadideh, a Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Beirut, a Shiite shop owner opened fire on Sunnis in a funeral procession as they passed his store chanting insults at Shiite Hezbollah leaders. Troops captured the gunman, who killed two and injured six, police and witnesses said.
After the attack angry people stormed the alleged gunman’s shop and set it ablaze. They attacked another shop with stones, shattering its glass.
Tarik Jadideh is a stronghold of Sunni supporters of Saad Hariri, the parliamentary majority leader and son of assassinated former premier Rafik Hariri.
Elsewhere in the capital, residents ventured out in small numbers to streets held by both Lebanese troops and lingering bands of Shiite gunmen.
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The real issue here besides Iran is Sharia law. Sharia law is Allah’s law and cannot co-exist with any other laws. When Sharia law is implimented all other forms of government are crushed by any means necessary. That means anyone and anything not under Sharia can be attacked, and torn usunder until Sharia has supplanted all other forms of government and any kafirs left pay the jizya or are killed.
The great unknown here is the undercurrent of resentment between two sects of Islam that hate one another; the Shia and Sunnis.
The Sunnis are the majority in the world, the Shia the minority. Only with the backing of a scewball like the Iranistanian mafiosoes can the Shia in Lebanon continue to exist and gain strength.
Without Iran, Syria will die of its own weight. Its influence in Lebanon would be nhil, neutralized by the people of Lebanon and the fear of a US or IDF attack.
Knocking the knees out of the Iraniac thugocracy, will go a long way towards a more stable Lebanon.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:25 amI bet that the Sunni outside Lebanon don’t care of what it’s going on there, and won’t lift their little finger
it’s been more than a century that the diverses tribal religious factions (christians too) are fighting each other there
May 10th, 2008 at 11:54 am@frenchie
Oh, but they do care. No way the Sunnis are going to tolerate Shia hegemony anywhere in the ME. It’s not consistent with Arab Aryanism.
The Qu-ran says that the Arabs are the best people, not the Persians. The followers of Ali are apostates in Sunni Islam.
The clash between Sunnis and Shia in Lebanon is only beginning to emerge. Iranistan wants to run the caliphate aa much as the Sunnis do. Which mafia takes control is the mafia that will rule.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:13 pmthey may care, only with mouthy anathems, they don’t want to affront them for real, cause they’ll loose ;
the problem with the lebanese Shias, they have been the parias up to the late years, they represent the 1/3 of Lebanon population, they are more numerous than the Christians, and thus, still not representated in the Lebanon government assemblees, they are the invisible.
Unfortunately they found their new “porte-parole” in the person of Nasrallah through 2 wars against Israel, that has helped them to take conscience of their power ; now they have the revendication to be a part of Lebanon as a full entity. Precisely those in Lebanon that don’t want tleave a little space are the Rich corrupted sunni (and more discretely the christians) ; they’ll fight this power till it falls down.
Saudi may inject lot’s of money in the sunni accounts, lost for goods, those lebanese sunni are “has been” in the nowadays world.
it’s not for nothing that one of your fellow said we ought to let them resolve their own affair, fight each others till the stronguest win, cause what we have done since the eighties and nothing, kif kif !
May 10th, 2008 at 1:06 pm@frenchie
Not a bad analysis. The trouble with the House of Saud is that while they continue to spread Salifism throught the world, they go against the Qu’ran and use the infidel US to do their bidding for them.
The Saudis have no real power. They only ply the strings of Salifism with their monies and mosque-building.
So long as the US and by extension, the West is fully engaged in the ME, the Saudis can kick back and watch…while hoping that Iran makes the mistake of pushing the US into war with them.
In the meantime the Saudis will continue to fund the global jihad with oil money and direct the jihadis to kill only non-Muslims.
But in general, your point is well-taken.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:23 pmso we all agree that the Saudi are the trouble makers, the first idea would be to bomb them, though that would change nothing they have spread they money accounts in all the possible finances paradises, and ,they, themselves, the ones that count in that mess don’t live in Saudi Arabia, but in our western jet-set places, that they own of course, so one should list all their prestigious habitations and forecast hostages hijacks there
May 10th, 2008 at 1:35 pm@frechie
Bombing Mecca or Medina with something on the order of 10 kilotons might be a good solution.
- or -
Stop buying ME oil and let the Saudis drown in their own oil; close down their Salifist mosques in the west, deport their salifist immans, and outlaw the burqua amd hijab.
Those Muslims who wish to assimilate into Western culture can stay. Those wishing to impose Sharia, can leave.
In general, the jihad has its philisophical home and principal finaciers in Saudi.
That would take care of one-third of the equasion that is Islamo-facism. The other third runs Iran. The last third is in Waziristan.
Take all three down, and the war on the West will end as ignominiously as the Second Jihad ended on September 12, 1683.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:05 pm“Stop buying ME oil and let the Saudis drown in their own oil; close down their Salifist mosques in the west, “
why is it that your government is still their alliee ?
“deport their salifist immans”
that is what our different government made in discretion, nowadays, more openly.
“and outlaw the burqua amd hijab.”
that makes a few years already that our parliament passed the law, with left and right votes, thus no possible sharia either
I bet your more f… in your country than we are
May 10th, 2008 at 4:25 pm