Fighting in Lebanon Moves North, Capital Is Quiet

By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press
May 13, 2008

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fighting between pro- and anti-government factions jumped to Lebanon's north yesterday, but a grim calm hung over the nearly empty streets of Beirut — a capital crippled by roadblocks, suspicion, and fear.

As black-clad Shiite fighters of Hezbollah carried their latest dead to burial, so did the families and friends of civilians caught in the middle of combat that has routed Sunni factions supporting the Western-allied government from Muslim west Beirut.

More than 50 people were confirmed dead since fighting erupted Wednesday — first in Beirut, then in the mountains overlooking the city. and yesterday in the northern city of Tripoli. It is the worst sectarian violence to wrack Lebanon since a 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

That war killed 150,000 people and laid waste to many parts of Beirut, leaving the city divided into ethnic and religious districts deeply suspicious of one another, and the new fighting has torn open old wounds.

"They abandoned their cause against Israel and have come to kill us," a 27-year-old Sunni, Wadad Abdel Nasser Shamaa, said of Hezbollah's militiamen. Her brother, Mohammed, was killed Thursday night when Hezbollah and its allies swept through the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Tarik Jadideh.

Their father, Abdel-Nasser Shamaa, 47, a vegetable vendor, said he once sympathized with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and even pasted a picture of the Shiite cleric to his bedroom mirror. He wants to know why his son was killed in what he called indiscriminate shooting by Hezbollah.

He said 22-year-old Mohammed was not a combatant. He said his son was visiting his parents when fighting erupted and he rushed off to get to his pregnant wife.

"Just as he walked out the door there was a burst of gunfire, several bullets hit our building," Mr. Shamaa said. The shooting was so heavy that he had to crawl on the ground to move his son. "I was soaked in his blood."

Outside his home, a small black and white poster announced the death of Mohammed Khayr Abdel-Nasser Shamaa, bearing the words "betrayed martyr."

Still, the father refused an offer from the Future movement, led by pro-government Sunni leader Saad Hariri, to pay for his son's burial and to wrap his coffin in the group's banner. Instead, Lebanon's national flag draped the coffin.