BEIRUT (AFP) - Fresh sectarian violence erupted in Lebanon on Monday, stoking fears about the stability of the country after a top security official was killed in a car bombing blamed on neighbouring Syria.
The army said it was determined to restore order, with the northern port of Tripoli also shaken by fighting between partisans and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that killed five people.
In the afternoon, personnel carriers entered the capital’s district of Tariq Jdideh, which had been a hotspot all day, and soldiers took up position on streets leading into it to keep them open, a military spokesman said.
Before dawn, six people were wounded when the army made a pre-dawn sweep of Tariq Jdideh in pursuit of armed men, and automatic weapons and anti-tank rocket fire could be heard. Later, soldiers responded after being fired on as they tried to clear a road into the district, a stronghold of opposition leader Saad Hariri whose partisans had blocked it despite calls by the former premier to stay off the streets.
The army spokesman said a 20-year-old Palestinian resident, Ahmad Quaider, was killed in the shooting, but the circumstances were unclear.
In Tripoli, a bastion where opposition to Assad is strong, a woman and four youths died during clashes, security sources said. A four-year-old girl was wounded, as were three soldiers hit as troops tried to restore calm.
Clashes have erupted regularly in Tripoli as tensions spill over the border from Syria, where a 19-month-old anti-regime revolt has left more than 34,000 people dead.
Lebanon has been on edge since Friday, when police intelligence chief General Wissam al-Hassan died in the Beirut bombing. The attack sparked immediate calls for Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose cabinet is dominated by Damascus ally Hezbollah, to resign.
Hezbollah’s militia, which never disarmed after the 1975-90 civil war, is the most powerful military force in Lebanon. A statement from the army high command said it is “committed to its role of stopping security breaches and maintaining civil order.
“Recent developments prove decidedly that the country is going through a critical time, and the level of tension in some areas has reached unprecedented levels,” it said.
It will take “resolute measures, particularly in areas of mounting sectarian friction... to prevent the assassination of martyred General Wissam al-Hassan from being exploited as an opportunity to murder the nation as a whole.”
The military also appealed to all political forces to be wary of their words and any calls for mobilisation, “because the fate of the nation is at stake.”
Lebanon is a multi-faith country in which Christians and Muslims each make up about one-third of the population. It has a complex but unwritten arrangement under which the president must be a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni and the speaker of parliament a Shia. Hariri, a former premier who heads the parliamentary opposition, said he was determined to oust Mikati’s government “by peaceful and democratic means.”
The funeral for Hassan, who was intelligence chief of the Internal Security Forces and a strong Assad opponent, had been billed as an opportunity to protest Syrian meddling in Lebanon but the mood quickly turned to fury at Mikati.
Former premier Fuad Siniora called on Mikati to resign, adding his voice to many others since Hassan and two others were killed and 126 wounded.
Siniora said the “government is responsible for the crime that killed Wissam... That is why he must go.” Mikati said on Saturday he would stay, at President Michel Sleiman’s request, to avoid a “political vacuum” in the volatile country.