Eight shot dead in Beirut protests
Pastor Dale Morgan
Eight shot dead in Beirut protests*
From correspondents in Beirut
January 28, 2008 09:58am
Article from: Reuters
EIGHT Lebanese opposition supporters were shot dead in Beirut today in
some of the worst street violence since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war,
raising tensions in a country gripped by political conflict.
A senior opposition source said all the dead were members of Hezbollah
or Amal - Shiite Muslim groups that have been locked in a power struggle
with the anti-Damascus governing coalition for more than a year.
At least 29 more people were wounded.
The violence spiralled after an Amal activist was shot dead when the
army moved to break up a protest over power cuts.
Security sources said the army, seen as neutral in the political crisis,
fired in the air to disperse the protest and that other gunman in
civilian clothes were nearby.
Most of the eight dead activists, all men, were killed in the same area,
but it was not clear who was responsible. The army said it was
investigating who was behind the shooting.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora urged calm and declared tomorrow a day of
mourning. Schools and universities were to be closed.
"In these moments, our country is passing through its most difficult and
dangerous times," he said. "What we have built during the past years is
in danger of crumbling."
Gunfire was heard into the night in Beirut, and the streets were deserted.
Gunmen were seen in Shiite and Christian areas near the scene of the
shooting in Mar Makhaeil.
In nearby Ain Roummaneh, the site of a massacre that had triggered
Lebanon's civil war, a hand grenade wounded seven people, security
sources said. Cars there were set ablaze.
The governing coalition and its Syrian-backed opponents have sought to
contain violence since clashes a year ago between their supporters. But
tensions are still high between Sunni Muslim followers of governing
coalition leader Saad al-Hariri and Shiites loyal to the opposition.
Animosity also runs deep between rival Christian groups.
Protesters used blazing tyres to block several main roads, including the
highway to the airport.
The protests spread beyond the capital to Shiite villages in the south
and the Bekaa Valley to the east.
Amal, led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, called on its followers to
leave the streets.
"We have no link to this action. We call on people not to react. We call
on them to pull out of the streets," senior Amal official Ali Hassan
Khalil said.
Hezbollah, which leads the opposition alliance, used loudspeakers to
urge calm.
Arab foreign ministers backed an Arab League initiative to solve
Lebanon's political crisis, which has left Lebanon without a president
since November, the Cairo-based organisation said.
At an emergency session in Cairo, the foreign ministers agreed that Arab
League Secretary-General Amr Moussa should press his efforts to help
rival parties reach an agreement on the make-up of a cabinet, the draft
final communique read.
Efforts to end the Lebanese crisis have been complicated by rivalry
between Syria and Saudi Arabia, which backs the governing coalition.
US rivalry with Iran, which supports Hezbollah, is also partly to blame,
analysts say.
Rival leaders have agreed that army chief General Michel Suleiman should
be the next president. But his election to the post has been held up by
a dispute over the makeup of a new government.