Fears of civil war grow as protests turn deadly in Lebanon

Lebanese protesters clashed with government supporters and blocked highways leading into Beirut on Jan. 23, raising fears that the political crisis might lead to open sectarian conflict or civil war. The police said at least three people died and 100 more were wounded throughout the country in the violence, the worst since the Hezbollah-led opposition began demanding more political power late last year. Mobs of men burned tires, set cars on fire and fought occasional gun battles with their political opponents. The turmoil started at dawn, when groups of protesters set up roadblocks along major thoroughfares leading into Beirut, blocking roads with burning tires, trucks and rubble said to be from buildings demolished last summer by Israeli bombs. They set fire to vehicles and, on several instances, were filmed attacking cars trying to pass their cordon. In Beirut, many of the clashes were in mixed neighborhoods, where young men on each side shouted epithets and hurled stones at each other. Along a thoroughfare, men got into a brawl amid sporadic gunfire. One side raised photos of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader and a Shiite, and burned those of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination in 2005 set off Lebanon's latest political turmoil. The other side lined up across the street and raised photos of Hariri, Siniora and even of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. On the coastal highway north of Beirut, supporters of Gen. Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian group and a Hezbollah ally, fought with men loyal to Samir Geagea, a government ally, in especially violent clashes. Police and troops deployed in the thousands across the country worked to open roads, sometimes negotiating with protesters, but they refrained from using force. In some instances, the military separated the two opposing sides who scuffled and exchange insults and stones, or charged the crowds, managing to open some roads. Officials said 14 people sustained gunshot wounds in disturbances between opposition supporters and pro-government activists in central and northern Lebanon. Michel Aoun, a senior opposition leader, told Al-Arabiya television that seven of the wounded were opposition members. Two of the deaths were in Tripoli, where two groups–one largely Sunni and one Alawite, a Shiite Muslim offshoot–fought each other in a gun battle. The other death was in a gunfight in the Christian Batroun region. By nightfall, the opposition began removing most of the makeshift roadblocks in the Beirut area and announced that it would call off the nationwide general strike that had set off the unrest. But the group warned that more protests could follow. The opposition has accused Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a Sunni, of corruption and graft and has dismissed him as a Western puppet. Opposition forces have called for his resignation and for a unity government that would ultimately give Hezbollah and its allies veto power. Opposition leaders insisted their supporters were protesting peacefully when residents began hurling stones at them. They also said they would not allow themselves to be dragged into a sectarian conflict. "Blocking roads is a democratic expression that happens all over the world," said Hussein Haj Hassan, a member of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc. "The government refused all the solutions we proposed, so we were left with only these options, and I warn them that we still have many other means of protest." Siniora, appearing on Lebanese television following the protests, insisted that he would not step down and that he still enjoyed the country's support. Stores and businesses in many parts of Lebanon were closed in support of the general strike called by Hezbollah, as streets remained empty and many areas were covered in smoke from the burning tires. The strike has deepened existing political divisions. The anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, made up of mostly Sunni Muslims, Druse and Christians, backs Saniora. The opposition is led by the Shia Muslim Hezbollah, and includes also some Druse and Christians. The opposition has been camped out in front of the prime minister's office in downtown Beirut and staged several protests to press its demands since Dec. 1. Troops have been deployed in central Beirut for weeks to keep order. Following the protests, Nasrallah said in a speech that the opposition movement had decided to stop short of toppling the government, fearing civil war. "The opposition has the political, popular and organizational strength to bring down the unconstitutional government today or tomorrow," Nasrallah told worshipers commemorating the Shiite holiday of Ashura in Beirut's southern suburbs. "What has so far prevented the fall of the government that is clinging to power is not international support but the patriotic feelings of the opposition and its desire to preserve civil peace." "The war in July showed how many weapons we have," he said. "But we did not resort to those weapons yesterday. Those who insist they have none, however, did use weapons." Two days after the strike, the Lebanese army imposed a night-long curfew on the capital after hundreds of government supporters and foes fought street battles that dragged past nightfall, leaving at least four people dead and about 150 wounded. Among the injured were Lebanese Army soldiers, who at times stood helplessly between the battling factions as they fought with rocks, sticks and, occasionally, guns. Bursts of automatic gunfire echoed along Beirut's airport road, and columns of black smoke rose from burning cars that littered the curbside. Hundreds of Hezbollah supporters in red and blue helmets poured into the neighborhood with sticks and chains. More clashes ensued elsewhere, as Sunni crowds firebombed the headquarters of a party allied to Hezbollah, and Shiite youths rampaged along a downtown street lined with bank buildings. The clashes stood in sharp contradiction to the optimism of an international conference in Paris, where more than $7.6 billion was pledged to help Lebanon's economy recover from last summer's war between Hezbollah and Israel. Saudi Arabia, the most important single donor, pledged $1 billion. The US offered $770 million in new aid, $220 million of which is earmarked to buy weapons and equipment for the Lebanese Army. France and the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, pledged $650 million each. Asked if the US would maintain its support if the Hezbollah Party would come to power in Lebanon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States is currently only dealing with a duly elected government and that Hezbollah has been classified as a "terrorist organization." Lebanon is currently $41 billion in debt and Siniora's fragile government has had to promise financial reforms which are unpopular at home to pay off some of the debt.