At least seven lives lost to clashes in Beirut, Bekaa, North

Friday, May 9, 2008 : Hizbullah secretary general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said during a press conference Thursday that Lebanon has entered a new phase of its political crisis and warned that a government crackdown on his party was tantamount to a "declaration of war." Nasrallah stressed that Hizbullah was ready to return to dialogue.

"There is no clear definition of the boundaries of resistance and those of the state. We need to delineate such boundaries in the future," Jumblatt added in response to Nasrallah's claim that Hizbullah would protect its arsenal by any means necessary.

"What happened today is enough - this harms everybody ... Druze, Sunni, Shiite, Christian," added Jumblatt, urging a quick resolution of the crisis.

Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea also reacted to Nasrallah's speech. In a statement released by the LF press office, Geagea said: "Despite the rhetorical flourish through which Sayyed Nasrallah sugarcoated his statements today, this was a declaration of war."

Geagea also stressed that "the security situation cannot be left as is, with roads block, tires burning and shootings threatening citizens' way of life."

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Friday, May 9, 2008 : Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun warned in a televised speech on Thursday that dismantling Hizbullah's communication network would expose the resistance to Israel.Aoun voiced support for comments earlier made by Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah that the political divide had a "political rather than a sectarian dimension to it."

He also held the government responsible for the deteriorating security situation in Lebanon, saying, "I place all the blame on the government."

Aoun added that blocking the road to Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport was the result of Lebanon's deepening economic crisis and called on the government to revoke its latest decisions.

The Cabinet on Monday decided to relieve the Beirut airport's security chief, General Wafiq Shoucair, of his duties and to counter Hizbullah's private phone network.

Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh said on Thursday the government would not take back its decisions, saying Hizbullah's private phone network constituted a violation of the state's power.

"We are fed up with many sects, many regions and many people, including the Shiites. It is regretful that the resistance has been transformed into a militia then into a gang," Hamadeh said, calling on Nasrallah to rereconsider his calculations for the sake of Lebanon's unity.

"Between the government and the militia, victory will definitely be for the government at the end of the day," he added.

The minister said the Lebanese Armed Forces commander General Michel Suleiman "is watching the situation and will not leave things as they are."

"The army will not allow the situation to degenerate, but we have to give it the necessary time to convince [protesters] before it resorts to repression," the telecommunications minister added, rejecting reports that Suleiman would resign.

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Friday, May 9, 2008 : The White House on Thursday demanded that Lebanon's Hizbullah "stop their disruptive activities" as fierce gun battles raged in Beirut. "Hizbullah needs to make a choice: Be a terrorist organization or be a political party, but quit trying to be both. They need to stop their disruptive activities now," said US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Bush leaves for the region on Tuesday, bound first for Israel's 60th anniversary then Saudi Arabia to celebrate 75 years of US relations with the kingdom, before heading to Egypt.

The fighting in Beirut erupted after the opposition threw its weight behind a labor strike on Wednesday, erecting barricades across the capital. Fighting then broke out between government loyalists and opposition supporters which escalated on Thursday.

Responding to recent government moves against Hizbullah, its secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said Thursday the actions were tantamount to a "declaration of war."

The UN Security Council on Thursday expressed support for the ruling coalition and appealed for calm and reopening the country's roads. 

"The members of the Security Council are deeply concerned about the current clashes and unrest in Lebanon, including the blocking of major roads and Beirut's international airport," said John Sawers, Britain's ambassador to the UN.

"They stress the need to uphold the security and sovereignty of Lebanon and express their support for the constitutional institutions of the country. They urge all sides to exercise calm and restraint and call for the immediate reopening of all roads," he added. 

Members "firmly believe that the best way to defuse tensions and avoid further instability is to resolve the current political crisis," Sawers said.

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Friday, May 9, 2008 : Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbullah, enjoys huge popularity in many part of the Arab world, where he is widely viewed as a courageous fighter who neutralized Israel's military might. The charismatic Nasrallah, 47, is a skilled orator with a sense of humor unusual among those in fundamentalist movements.

Born in Beirut's impoverished northern suburb of Bourj Hammoud on August 31, 1960, he was one of nine children of a poor grocer hailing from the tiny Southern village of Bazuriyeh.

Intelligent and deeply religious, Nasrallah studied both politics and the Koran for three years at a Shiite seminary in Najaf, Iraq, before being expelled in 1978 when then-President Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, repressed Shiite activists.

He then became heavily involved in Lebanese politics and gained much of his early experience in the Shiite Amal militia. But he broke away from Amal in 1982 along with several other colleagues in a dispute over ways to confront the situation resulting from the full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon that year.

He was elected secretary general of Hezbollah in 1992, aged just 32, after an Israeli helicopter gunship killed his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi - and the latter's wife and children - in the South.

Hizbullah's solid performance during Israel's infamous "Grapes of Wrath" military offensive in Lebanon in 1996 cemented Nasrallah's role as a symbol of resistance and also secured him a privileged place with Syria, where his portrait is omnipresent in many areas.

He acquired cult status in Lebanon and across the Arab world after Israel withdrew its troops from most of South Lebanon under relentless Hizbullah attacks in May 2000, ending 22 years of occupation in the region.

Nasrallah's 14 years at the helm of Hizbulla have also been marked by internal successes in Lebanon. It has 14 MPs in the Parliament, and until a walkout in November 2006 also held two Cabinet posts.

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Friday, May 9, 2008 : Former Interior Minister and head of the Marada Movement Suleiman Franjieh says Hizbullah tried to avoid the events of Wednesday and Thursday for some time, "and they are the ones who were afraid of movements on the street." "There are daily provocations directed at Hizbullah, which aim at dragging the party into internal conflicts," Franjieh told OTV.

Daily Star staff
Friday, May 09, 2008

BEIRUT: Former Interior Minister and head of the Marada Movement Suleiman Franjieh says Hizbullah tried to avoid the events of Wednesday and Thursday for some time, "and they are the ones who were afraid of movements on the street." "There are daily provocations directed at Hizbullah, which aim at dragging the party into internal conflicts," Franjieh told OTV in an interview aired Wednesday night.

"Sunnis are not being targeted," the former minister said, arguing that Sunnis have long dominated the political system in Lebanon at the expense of the country's Christians. 

Franjieh said that the parliamentary majority wanted to test Hizbullah by bringing up the party's private communications network and has placed its bets on the arrival of foreign fleets, he said.

"Yet the arrival of fleets will turn Lebanon into an Iraq," he warned. "If a political compromise is not reached, Lebanon will enter civil war. The protests will be extended, and the airport will remain closed. Civil disobedience is a democratic right, and we might resort to it," he added.

Franjieh also did not rule out the possibility of the army's division if it becomes involved on the ground.

"Shiite officers and 60 percent of Christian officers will leave the army if it changes the way it has been acting so far," the fomer minister said.

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