Gunbattle in Beirut amid fears of Syria spillover

Syr­i­ans chant slo­gans dur­ing a demon­stra­tion, Fri­day, in Zabadani neigh­bor­hood, Dam­as­cus, Syria. A sui­cide vehi­cle bomb tore through the park­ing lot of a mil­i­tary com­pound in an east­ern Syr­ian city on Sat­ur­day, killing sev­eral in a series of blasts in recent months tar­get­ing secu­rity instal­la­tions, the country’s state media reported. (AP Photo/Fadi Zaidan)

HUSSEIN MALLA

Asso­ci­ated Press

BEIRUT — Gun­men fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns early Mon­day in intense street bat­tles in the Lebanese cap­i­tal, wound­ing six peo­ple as fears mounted that the con­flict in neigh­bor­ing Syria was bleed­ing across the border.

The fight­ing appeared to be among the worst clashes in Beirut since 2008. The clashes erupted hours after an anti-Syrian cleric and his body­guard were shot dead in north­ern Lebanon.

Lebanon and Syria share a com­plex web of polit­i­cal and sec­tar­ian ties and rival­ries, which are eas­ily enflamed. Last week, clashes sparked by the Syr­ian cri­sis killed at least eight peo­ple and wounded dozens in the north­ern city of Tripoli.

The revolt in Syria began 15 months ago, and there are fears the unrest will lead to a regional con­fla­gra­tion that could draw in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. The U.N. esti­mates the con­flict has killed more than 9,000 peo­ple since March 2011.

Sunday’s fight­ing in Beirut pit­ted pro– and anti-Syrian Sunni groups, accord­ing to an Asso­ci­ated Press reporter at the scene in the Mazraa dis­trict. Gun­men were roam­ing the streets and sev­eral roads were blocked.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said gun­men were using “bombs and machine guns” and that six peo­ple were wounded.

The appar­ent trig­ger for the fight­ing was the shoot­ing death of Sunni cleric Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Wahid and his body­guard in north­ern Lebanon. The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing their deaths remain unclear but the NNA said they appeared to have been killed by sol­diers after their con­voy failed to stop at an army checkpoint.

The Lebanese army issued a state­ment, say­ing it deeply regret­ted the inci­dent and that a com­mit­tee will investigate.

The fight­ing under­scores how the blood­shed in Syria, where Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad’s regime is crack­ing down on an upris­ing against his rule, is enflam­ing emo­tions in its tiny neigh­bor Lebanon. Lebanon has a frag­ile polit­i­cal fault­line pre­cisely over the issue of Syria.

There is an array of diehard pro-Syrian Lebanese par­ties and politi­cians, as well as sup­port for the regime on the street level. There is an equally deep hatred of Assad among other Lebanese who fear Dam­as­cus is still call­ing the shots here. The two sides are the legacy of Syria’s vir­tual rule over Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 and its con­tin­ued influ­ence since.

The fight­ing was the among the most intense fight­ing in Beirut since May 2008, when gun­men from the Shi­ite Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group swept through Sunni neigh­bor­hoods after the pro-Western gov­ern­ment tried to dis­man­tle the group’s telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions network.

More than 80 peo­ple were killed in the 2008 vio­lence, push­ing the coun­try to the brink of civil war.

There was no sign that Hezbol­lah was involved in the lat­est violence.

In Syria on Sun­day, a road­side bomb exploded in a restive sub­urb of Dam­as­cus as senior U.N. offi­cials toured the area on Sun­day, the lat­est inci­dent in which the unarmed observer mis­sion has nearly been caught up in the country’s bloodshed.

No casu­al­ties were reported in the blast, which det­o­nated about 150 meters (500 feet) away from vis­it­ing U.N. peace­keep­ing chief Herve Lad­sous and Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the chief of U.N. observers in Syria. Jour­nal­ists accom­pa­ny­ing the team also were nearby. The explo­sion blew off the front of a parked vehicle.

A U.N. observer team with more than 250 mem­bers now on the ground has failed to quell the blood­shed in Syria, although it says it has had a “calm­ing effect” in cer­tain areas. Mean­while, on sev­eral occa­sions, the team has come close to being caught in an attack, although there is no con­clu­sive proof that it has been targeted.

Ear­lier this month, a bomb tar­get­ing an army truck exploded sec­onds after a con­voy car­ry­ing Mood went past in the country’s south. Last week, a road­side bomb dam­aged the mission’s cars in a north­ern town just min­utes after wit­nesses said regime forces gunned down mourn­ers at a funeral pro­ces­sion nearby.

It was not imme­di­ately clear what the tar­get of Sunday’s explo­sion was, but the dam­aged car was parked near a secu­rity check­point in the sub­urb of Douma. A secu­rity offi­cial at the check­point told the U.N. observers that gun­men had tar­geted two mil­i­tary buses in Douma ear­lier in the day, wound­ing more than 30 secu­rity agents.

“We obvi­ously don’t have the specifics about what hap­pened here this morn­ing,” Mood said Sunday.

Activists reported heavy shelling Sun­day in the town of Soran in the cen­tral Hama province. The Britain-based Syr­ian Obser­va­tory for Human Rights called on the inter­na­tional observers to visit Soran and inves­ti­gate reports of more than a dozen killed.

The revolt against Assad’s regime started in March 2011 with mostly peace­ful protests call­ing for polit­i­cal change. The deadly gov­ern­ment crack­down led many oppo­si­tion sup­port­ers to take up arms. Now, the regime is fac­ing an armed insur­gency tar­get­ing gov­ern­ment instal­la­tions, sol­diers and secu­rity forces.

In March, the U.N. said that 9,000 peo­ple had been killed. Hun­dreds more have died since.

A cease-fire that was sup­posed to start last month has never really taken hold, under­min­ing the rest of inter­na­tional envoy Kofi Annan’s plan, which is sup­posed to lead to talks to end the 15-month crisis.

World pow­ers remain divided on how to end Syria’s cri­sis. The U.S. and other West­ern and Arab nations have called for Assad to leave power, and the U.S. and Euro­pean Union have placed increas­ingly stiff sanc­tions on Dam­as­cus. But with Rus­sia and China block­ing sig­nif­i­cant new U.N. pun­ish­ments, U.S. offi­cials are try­ing to get con­sen­sus among other allies about ways to pro­mote Assad’s ouster.

Posted by AP News on May 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.