Clashes erupt for second day in Lebanon

By ZEINA KARAM

BEIRUT, Lebanon _ Shiite supporters of Hezbollah and Sunnis backing Lebanon's U.S.-allied government clashed on the streets of Beirut with automatic rifles and grenades on Thursday.

Machine-gun fire and explosions could be heard coming from West Beirut, where masked gunmen were seen standing on street corners, occasionally opening fire with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. No clashes were reported in predominantly Christian East Beirut.

Downtown, home to the government where Hezbollah supporters have been camped out in protest against the state for months, remained quiet.

The clashes followed a defiant speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who said his Iranian-backed militant organization would respond with force to any attacks.

"Those who try to arrest us, we will arrest them," he said. "Those who shoot at us, we will shoot at them. The hand raised against us, we will cut it off."

It was the second day of fighting that has turned some city neighborhoods into battlegrounds and spilled over to other parts of the country.

The clashes were taking place on Corniche Mazraa, a major thoroughfare that has become a demarcation line between the two sides, and in the nearby Ras el-Nabeh area. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Earlier in the same area, troops in armored carriers moved in to separate both sides who traded insults and threw stones at each other.

The violence appeared to begin as a test of wills between political rivals who have been locked in a 17-month power struggle for control of the government. It now could be degenerating into a wider and deadlier sectarian conflict, with the Sunnis' spiritual leader denouncing Hezbollah and appealing to a largely Sunni Islamic world to intervene.

The rivals have failed to agree on electing a president, leaving the country without a head of state since November.

The latest round of tensions was sparked by the government's decision earlier this week to confront Hezbollah by replacing the Beirut airport security chief for alleged ties to the Shiite militants.

The government also declared Hezbollah's private communications network to be illegal.

Hezbollah and leaders of the 1.2-million-strong Shiite community, believed to be Lebanon's largest sect, rejected the decisions, and the airport security chief kept his job.