Hezbollah tightens its grip on Beirut amid fresh bloodshed

AFTER heavily armed Hezbollah fighters seized control of much of western Beirut on Friday they withdrew overnight, leaving their allies, the Amal Shi'ite militias, to consolidate their gains after some of the worst fighting in Beirut since the civil war.

The state of lawlessness in the city's Muslim areas was underlined by an attack on a funeral procession yesterday in Tarik Jadideh, a Sunni neighbourhood of Beirut earlier seized by Shiite gunmen, that left two dead and two wounded. While the violence tapered off in Beirut, however, it erupted in the mountain town of Aley east of Beirut. Four people were killed there late on Friday night, while another civilian died in the clashes in the southern city of Sidon.

As the dust settles, it is clear that Hezbollah has increased its influence significantly. Its allies also forced a government-allied satellite television station off the air and burned the offices of its newspaper affiliate as Sunni fighters loyal to the government largely melted away after three days of sectarian clashes.

Those humiliating blows made clearer than ever the power and determination of Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group backed by Iran and Syria, and its allies.

By Friday afternoon, armed Shi'ite fighters were riding joyfully through west Beirut in a long column of trucks, cars and scooters, shouting and firing their weapons into the air in a victory celebration.

The government issued an urgent appeal for help from other nations, calling Hezbollah's actions an "armed coup" against Lebanon and its democratic system using "weapons sent by Tehran."

Some government lawmakers, including the Druse leader, Walid Jumblatt, and Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, spent the day holed up in their compounds, protected by Lebanese Army contingents and the police.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States was "deeply concerned" about the continuing violence and condemned Hezbollah as "undermining the legitimate authority of the Lebanese government."

Israeli officials said they were closely tracking events across their northern border.

It was not yet clear what Friday's events would mean for Lebanon's political future, or how Hezbollah's show of force might translate into a corresponding political advantage. For now, they seemed only to deepen the political stalemate here. For 17 months, Lebanon has been divided between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which is supported by the West and Saudi Arabia. The stand-off has left the country without a president since late November.

Lebanon's army – the one institution viewed as neutral in the country's bitter political struggle – has stood by during the clashes, unwilling to take sides.

Three days of street battles here have left at least 11 people dead and 20 wounded. Most of the fighting has been in Beirut, but there have been sporadic gun battles between pro-government and opposition forces in other areas, including the Bekaa Valley, northern Lebanon and the Chouf mountains.

The violence seemed to be tapering off on Friday, though some major roads remained blocked, including the one linking Beirut and its airport.

The recent battles started after the government on Tuesday took steps against Hezbollah's private telecommunications network, calling it a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty.

Hezbollah loyalists responded, quickly blocking roads in the capital with burning tyres, including the crucial road to the airport.

On Thursday, Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said the government had declared war by threatening to shut down the group's private telephone network. "We have said before that we will cut the hand that targets the weapons of the resistance," he said. "Today is the day to fulfil this promise."

The group will call off its fighters only after the government backs down completely from its challenge to the telephone network, Sheik Nasrallah said.

But Hezbollah's goals are likely to extend beyond that, said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Hezbollah expert.

"I can't envision Hezbollah joining this government, so the demands will go beyond their previous demands," she said. "They want the government to resign. This is effectively a coup."

The government has been urging the election of the army commander, General Michel Suleiman, as president, and on Thursday, Saad Hariri, a leader of the government political alliance, repeated that proposal. But Hezbollah and its Christian allies have rejected proposals for electing a president until there is a much broader agreement, including a new cabinet and a new election law.

In Friday's clashes, Hezbollah and its allies appear to have singled out Hariri, the leader of the pro-government March 14 political alliance. Militia fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades at the office of his Future newspaper in west Beirut early on Friday morning, badly burning several floors of the building. The Future Movement's television station was forced off the air, and the Lebanese Army took over another Future office after Hezbollah allies made threats against it.

One casualty of the recent confrontations has been the widespread notion that Sunni militias capable of countering Hezbollah were being trained in Lebanon, said Sarkis Naoum, a senior columnist for Al Nahar newspaper.

As it turned out, the young Sunni fighters loyal to Hariri's Future Movement – part of the government majority – were no match for their better-armed Shi'ite rivals. Hariri apparently recognised this, and ordered a withdrawal rather than face a massacre.

So far, the young men – some in their teens – who make up most of the militia fighters have obeyed commands from their leaders to stop fighting. Whether they will continue to do so is a much-discussed question here.