Uncertainty in Beirut

Since the assassination of former Sunni prime minister Rafiq Hariri 14 Feb 2005, allegedly through a Syrian conspiracy, the ruling anti-Syrian majority comprised of the Druze Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), Christian Lebanese Forces and Kataeb as well as the Future movement headed by Saad Hariri, son of slain prime minister Hariri, has been in conflict with the Syrian and Iranian backed opposition, dominated by Shia Amal and Hizballah movements.

Tension between the two groups has been aggressively building up since Saturday 26 April, when French Socialist MP Karim Pakzad was detained by Hizballah. In the country to attend a two-day Socialist International conference in Beirut, Pakzad was detained and interrogated for four hours before being released while touring and taking pictures in an area considered the party's stronghold. Pakzad's host, Walid Jumblat, head of the PSP and a powerful figure in the governing majority, was clearly unhappy with the turn of events.

A week after the kidnapping of Pakzad, Jumblat made earth-shattering accusations against Hizballah during a conference. Jumblat claimed that the Islamic party had placed cameras around the airport that could be used for the killing and kidnapping of Lebanese and foreign leaders. He supported his arguments by showing reporters an exchange of emails between Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr and army intelligence services discussing the discovery of surveillance cameras in the airport's vicinity.

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"It is impossible for Shia to shoot on Sunnis," insisted a military commander of Shia opposition group Amal, allied with Shia resistance group Hizballah, whose near two-year political battle against the Sunni-led government descended on 8 May into the worst fighting in Beirut since the ruinous 1975-1990 civil war that killed up to 150,000 people.

"My wife is Sunni: should I kill my nephews?" asked the commander, who gave his name only as Abu Ali.

But his words were cut short by machine-gun fire from the Sunni neighborhood across the road in the central Beirut neighborhood of Mazraa, sending sparks and soot flying up from the ground.

Young men outside the Amal office, some of them tattooed, many of them wearing ski masks, dashed for the nearest wall, loading clips into their machine-guns and high caliber automatic rifles.

From the boot of a black SUV, older men removed brand new rockets from their plastic covers, loading them into launchers to fire into the Sunni neighborhood just meters across the road.

"I brought my two daughters out here earlier," said 50-year-old Abu Ali, gesturing towards the corner of the building from where his fighters were preparing to jump out and fire. "I brought them out so they could see who their enemy was."

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