Lebanon militants to withdraw?

2008-05-10 18:36

Beirut - Lebanon's Hezbollah-led opposition on Saturday said it was ending its takeover of west Beirut after the army revoked government moves against the Shi'ite group that sparked deadly fighting.

"The opposition welcomes the army's decision and will proceed with the withdrawal of all its armed elements so that control of the capital is handed over to the military," opposition MP Ali Hassan Khalil of Hezbollah ally Amal said.

His comments came shortly after the army said it was overturning a government decision to reassign the head of airport security and to probe a communications network set up by Hezbollah.

Khalil said, however, that the opposition would maintain a civil disobedience campaign against the Western-backed government.

The army also called for all armed militants to withdraw from the streets as the death toll from the violence rose to more than 30 amid renewed clashes across the country.

"The army command calls on all parties to (help restore calm) by ending armed protests and withdrawing gunmen from the streets and opening the roads," the military said in a statement.

It said that the head of airport security, who had been reassigned from his job, would remain in his post pending an investigation and that the army itself would look into the communications network set up by the militant group.

"Brigadier General Wafiq Shqeir will remain in his post until appropriate procedural measures have been taken after a probe," the statement said.

"As for the telecommunications network, the army will look into the issue in a manner that is not harmful to the public interest or the security of the resistance" against Israel, it said.

The military said it had taken these decisions in the light of a government wish that it rule on these matters.

The army statement came shortly after Prime Minister Fuad Siniora made a televised address to the nation in which he accused Hezbollah of staging an armed coup and also urged the military to restore order.

The latest violence to shake Lebanon has pitted mainly Sunni supporters of the Western-backed ruling bloc against Shi'ite militants from the opposition and effectively shut down the country's only international airport.

In his first reaction to Hezbollah's takeover of west Beirut, Siniora decried what he called a "poisonous sting" to democracy and vowed that Lebanon would not succumb.

He said Hezbollah's weapons could no longer be considered to be legitimately held because they had been turned on Lebanese.

"We believed them when they said they would not turn their weapons internally," he said. "But Hezbollah must know that the power of weapons will not terrorise us."

Sixteen people were killed in new violence on Saturday, two of them at a funeral procession for an earlier victim of the sectarian fighting.

Fourteen were also killed in north Lebanon in clashes between rival supporters, a security official told AFP.

- AFP