Lebanon violence spiralling out of control

Beirut: Fierce armed clashes erupted on Thursday in Beirut between supporters of Lebanon's government and the Hezbollah-led opposition, a security official said.

The official said the clashes had erupted in several mixed neighbourhoods, with fighters using rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles and machine guns.

Security sources said the fighting killed at least five people and wounded 12.

Television footage showed armed gunmen in the Corniche Al Mazraa and Ras An-Naba'a districts firing at each other.

The United States on Thursday demanded that Hezbollah "stop their disruptive activities".

"Hezbollah needs to make a choice: Be a terrorist organisation or be a political party, but quit trying to be both. They need to stop their disruptive activities now," said US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Separately, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called the outbreak of violence a "source of concern" for Washington.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is urging rivals in Lebanon to stop the violence, immediately reopen all roads, and urgently resolve the country's problems through peaceful dialogue.

Council members on Thursday also urged the rival parties to urgently work together to elect a new president.

Hezbollah launched a new street campaign on Wednesday, piling pressure on the government after it declared the group's communication network illegal and removed the head of airport security, a figure close to the group, from his post.

Supporters of Hezbollah and its allies have blocked roads leading to the airport — Lebanon's only air link to the outside world — and other main streets, paralysing much of the capital.

The airport was barely functioning with only a few flights arriving and taking off, airport officials said.

The fighting in Beirut erupted minutes after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah told a news conference that the only way out of the crisis was for the government to rescind the decisions and to attend talks aiming to end a 17-month-long political conflict with the Hezbollah-led opposition.

"This decision is first of all a declaration of war and the launching of war by the government... against the resistance and its weapons for the benefit of America and Israel," Nasrallah said in reference to the government's move.

He described the fixed-line network that connects the group's officials, military commanders and positions as a vital part of the military structure of the group, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

"The communications network is the significant part of the weapons of the resistance," Nasrallah said via video link from an unknown location in Beirut's southern suburbs.
"I had said that we will cut the hand that targets the weapons of the resistance... Today is the day to fulfil this decision."

Beirut's streets were virtually deserted as residents, fearing the possibility of a full-blown sectarian conflict, stayed indoors.

‘No comment'

"If this situation continues, everyone will lose and this will affect the unity of the military," the army command warned.

As the crisis escalated, UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed Larsen told the Security Council that Hez-bollah's separate paramilitary infrastructure "constitutes a threat to regional peace and security."

Israel said it had no comment on the latest events in its northern neighbour, with foreign affairs spokesman Arye Mekel bluntly stating: "It's none of our business."
Armed men, some hooded, were seen in several mixed neighbourhoods of Beirut, where troops and riot police were out in force. Many schools and businesses remained shut for a second day.

Protesters burned tyres and lit fires along the airport road, which remained blocked by large mounds of earth dumped by Hezbollah supporters, while government loyalists set up road blocks and set tyres ablaze along the main highway to Syria and between Beirut and the southern coastal city of Sidon.

Peace offer: ‘misinterpreted decision'

Lebanese parliamentary majority leader Sa'ad Hariri urged Hezbollah opposition leader Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday to lift his "siege" of Beirut, which has been the scene of fierce clashes between rival factions.

"I urge you to lift the siege on Beirut and to withdraw your armed militants," Hariri said on television, shortly after a press conference in which Nasrallah spoke out against government measures against his Shiite Muslim group.

"This is a crime that must stop immediately. We will not accept for Beirut to kneel before anyone. Beirut will not kneel," he added.

"My appeal to you is to stop the language of arms ... We are entrusted with the unity of Muslims and Lebanon ... then let us put out the flames [of strife]," Hariri said.

Hariri said Hezbollah had "misinterpreted" the government's decision earlier this week to probe a private communications network set up by the group and to reassign the airport security chief over allegation he was close to Hezbollah.

He said the measures were aimed at protecting the army and did not target the Hezbollah.
Hariri said the two decisions should be put in the hands of the army, which both sides see as a neutral institution.

Hariri also urged the opposition, backed by Syria and Iran, to agree to the immediate election of consenus candidate and army chief Michel Sulaiman as president and to engage in a national dialogue under the auspices of the new president.