BEIRUT — Lebanon's pro-Western government was in deepening crisis Sunday as clashes between its overmatched loyalists and the Hezbollah-led opposition raged around the country. The fresh fighting imperilled an army-brokered attempt at a ceasefire.
Beirut was calm over the weekend as Hezbollah withdrew its gunmen shortly after capturing the western half of the city. However, fighting flared up Sunday in Tripoli, in the north of the country, and in the villages of Mount Lebanon, to the southeast of the capital. At least 53 people have been killed and more than 150 injured since fighting broke out in the middle of last week.
The often lopsided gun battles put a large dent in hopes that the crisis might be nearing an end. On Saturday, the army intervened to overturn two controversial government decisions that had sparked the violence.
The military said that, pending an investigation, it would not enforce a cabinet decree calling for the dismantling of the Shia militant group's secret communications grid. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the fibre-optic network was a key part of its arsenal for confronting Israel, and said any attempt to shut it amounted to “a declaration of war.”
Lebanese soldiers on an armored personnel carrier move in to a new position to stop clashes between pro-government supporters of Druse leader Walid Jumblatt and Shiite gunmen and their allies in Chouweifat, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, May 11. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
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The army, which has stood aside through the fighting, also reinstated a Hezbollah-linked brigadier-general as head of airport security, days after he had been fired by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's predominantly Sunni government for allegedly spying on behalf of Hezbollah and its supporters in Syria and Iran.
Hezbollah, its key demands met, responded by withdrawing its fighters from the streets of West Beirut, handing control to the army. Thousands of soldiers, backed by columns of armoured personnel carriers, were deployed on the city's otherwise empty streets Sunday.
The opposition, however, kept up a campaign of “civil disobedience” that has seen the capital's port, airport and major roads shut by protesters demanding the resignation of Mr. Siniora and his Western-backed government.
“Our fight is not Sunni-Shia. It is between the resistance and America and its spies and agents in Lebanon,” said Abu Ali Zain, a Kalashnikov-wielding fighter from Amal, a Shia militia that fought alongside Hezbollah during the attack on West Beirut. “We will continue the fight, and maybe increase it, until the government resigns.”
International concern is high over the fighting, which has the potential to further destabilize the entire region.
Mr. Siniora has denounced Hezbollah and its allies as “putschists” trying to carry out an armed coup. The gun battles sprang out of an 18-month political standoff that has paralyzed the country's political system and left it without a president since Emile Lahoud's term ended in November.
Signalling another defeat for Mr. Siniora's allies, Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the pro-government Druze, called for a negotiated end to the fighting. “I tell my supporters that civil peace, co-existence and stopping war and destruction are more important than any other consideration,” he said in an interview with LBC television, looking haggard. Fighting, however, continued late into the night, spreading further south and east.
The Druze are a secretive offshoot of Islam, whose followers are believed to make up 10 per cent of Lebanon's population. They have a reputation as fierce fighters dating back to the country's 1975-1990 civil war, with Mr. Jumblatt seen until Sunday as their almost uncontested leader.
But two days after routing the pro-government Sunni forces, Hezbollah and its allies appeared to be on the verge of doing the same to the government's Druze supporters.
The five days of fighting have now drawn in most of Lebanon's factions, with the exception of the sizable Christian population, who are divided between the two camps. Throughout the conflict, life has carried on largely as normal in East Beirut and other Christian areas of the country.
The Sunni-led government is backed by the main Druze faction, plus the right-wing Lebanese Forces Christian militia. The opposition is predominantly Shiite, but has the support of Michel Aoun, a popular Christian leader and former general.
