Army deployed in Lebanon
2008-05-11 18:21
Beirut - The army deployed across much of Lebanon on Sunday after Hezbollah ceded control of west Beirut, but clashes raged on in the north and in the Druze mountains as Arab foreign ministers held crisis talks.
Heavy machine-gun fire and loud explosions echoed through several villages in the district of Aley as Druze majority leader Walid Jumblatt urged his rival Talal Arslan - who is allied with the Hezbollah-led opposition - to place the area under army control.
"Civil peace and halting the destruction are paramount," Jumblatt told Lebanese television. He asked his supporters to lay down their weapons.
Arslan also called on opposition fighters to halt the fighting.
Shortly after the appeals the army began deploying in the area.
Fierce overnight sectarian clashes
Earlier on Sunday the army had moved into the northern city of Tripoli where fierce overnight sectarian clashes had left one woman dead at at least five wounded.
The capital Beirut was calm with Shi'ite Muslim militants who had been locked in deadly although one-sided clashes for four days with Sunni Muslim opponents having seemingly vanished from the steets.
However, some barricades put up by the Shi'ite militants remained and the road to Beirut's sole civilian airport was shut for the fifth straight day, reflecting a continuing civil disobedience campaign by the opposition.
Emergency talks
Arab League foreign ministers meanwhile held emergency talks on Lebanon in Cairo in the absence of Syria's top diplomat, whose country has been blamed for the troubles.
Djibouti's Foreign Minister Mahmud Ali Yussuf, who was chairing the session, told fellow ministers that "a number of steps and measures to resolve the situation in Lebanon have been put forward".
He urged the different factions in Lebanon to "exercise restraint and co-operate with Arab endeavours," stressing that an Arab plan to resolve the crisis "is the only initiative on the table."
That initiative calls for the election of Lebanese army chief General Michel Sleiman as president, the establishment of a national unity government and the drafting of a new electoral law.
'Declaration of war'
The latest violence was sparked by a government crackdown on a telephone network run by Hezbollah and the sacking of the airport security chief over his alleged links to the militant group.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the measures amounted to a declaration of war, with ensuing clashes leading to the opposition taking over large swathes of west Beirut and leaving nearly 40 dead across the country.