Lebanon teeters toward civil war

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Lebanon’s long-simmering political crisis lurched deeper into violent civil conflict Thursday as rival bands of Shiite and Sunni gunmen battled in the streets for a second day and politicians took to the airwaves to denounce each other for pushing the country toward war.

Explosions and ferocious bursts of gunfire rattled central Beirut as groups allied with the Hezbollah-led opposition and the U.S.-backed government fired machine guns, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades toward each other and into the air in apparent shows of strength. The deep thuds of occasional mortar fire shook the earth as night fell.

Throughout the day, panicked civilians scurried for cover or loaded up on basic supplies, emptying supermarket shelves of frozen meats. Gunmen had blocked roads to the country’s sole international airport as well as the main highways to Damascus, the capital of Syria, and to southern Lebanon, effectively placing the capital under siege.

Lebanese news sources said at least four people were killed in Thursday’s fighting and a female bystander died of wounds from the previous day’s clashes. But information was scant as paramedics and security officials avoided areas of intense fighting that witnesses said resembled the scope of the all-out civil war that engulfed the country from 1975 to 1990.

By late night, U.S.-backed government allies were calling for “dialogue” with Hezbollah even as fighting continued and allegations mounted that Shiite militiamen were raiding homes and offices of government supporters.

“We are trapped in our homes,” one Sunni militiaman aligned with the pro-government Future movement said Thursday night, speaking on the telephone from his central Beirut home. He spoke on condition of anonymity. “They shot at my building and at my car. We are trying to call the army to protect us and hoping we won’t be taken from our homes, but they will know sooner or later where we live.”

The violence came amid heightened regional tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, which strongly back the government, and Iran and Syria, which support Hezbollah and the opposition. In Lebanon, as well as the Palestinian territories and Iraq, the U.S. has begun to increase pressure on Iranian allies. It blamed Hezbollah for the current unrest in Lebanon.

“Hezbollah needs to make a choice: Be a terrorist organization or be a political party, but quit trying to be both,” U.S. national security council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Thursday. “They need to stop their disruptive activities now.”

Tensions escalated Tuesday after the U.S.-backed government voted to outlaw Hezbollah’s communications network, which the group allegedly was expanding, and sack the Hezbollah-allied head of security at the international airport, who allegedly had begun harassing visitors suspected of political ties to the government.

The fiercest battles erupted following a televised speech Thursday afternoon by Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of the Shiite militia Hezbollah.

Nasrallah warned that the Lebanese Cabinet’s decision to declare the group’s fiber-optic system illegal was tantamount to a declaration of war and put the government squarely in the camp of Hezbollah’s enemies, Israel and the United States, which consider the Shiite militia and political party a terrorist organization.

“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 told reporters via teleconference.

“The communications network is the significant part of the weapons of the resistance,” Nasrallah said. “I had said that we will cut the hand that targets the weapons of the resistance. … Today is the day to fulfill this decision.”