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Seven killed in Beirut violence |
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Written by BBC
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Seven people have been killed in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after a demonstration against power cuts descended into violence.
Shots were fired as the army intervened when protesters tried to block a road.
An activist from the opposition Shia Amal movement was killed, triggering violent protests in which six more people were killed, reports say.
Sporadic gunfire was heard as the fighting spread and Beirut's airport road was temporarily blocked by tyres.
A security official said gunmen had opened fire on troops as they tried to break up the demonstration.
He said the soldiers had then fired warning shots to disperse the protestors.
But crowds of angry opposition supporters took to the streets around the capital, and in Shia parts of southern Lebanon, as news of the shooting spread.
Burst of gunfire
Amal released a statement saying the dead activist had not been involved in the protests, and it remains unclear who was responsible for his death.
The demonstration had been against chronic electricity cuts in predominantly Shia areas of southern Beirut.
Amal is part of an opposition alliance, led by the Shia militant group Hezbollah, that has been locked in a power struggle for more than a year with the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
Mr Siniora's supporters have accused Amal and Hezbollah of exploiting social and economic issues for political ends. Both parties have denied doing so.
They urged their supporters to leave the streets as army reinforcements were deployed later on Sunday.
But bursts of gunfire continued into the night around the scene of the first shooting in Mar Makhaeil.
And in the nearby suburb of Ain Roummaneh, the site of a massacre that had triggered Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, a hand grenade wounded seven people and cars were set ablaze, security sources said.
Acute instability
Sunday's violence was Beirut's worst since street clashes a year ago between gangs of pro-government and pro-opposition supporters.
It followed a massive bomb blast on Friday which killed a senior Lebanese intelligence officer and three others in the east of the capital.
The latest deaths come at a time of acute political instability in Lebanon as deadlock between pro-Syrian and pro-Western parties drags on.
Arab League foreign ministers are meeting in Cairo for the second time this month to try to break the deadlock which has left Lebanon without a president since November.
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Madness takes over Lebanon.
Militants are fighting in the streets of Beirut. Military guns are on both sides. What is the prospect of such a situation. Aren't the Lebanese fed-up with wars?
23 November 2007
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud left the Baabda presidential palace without handing over the power to a new president. This is the first time since independence in 1943. |
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