BEIRUT: A chorus of calls for an "arms-free" Beirut in the wake of a deadly battle outside a mosque last week is fast fading as Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah warns against attempts to disarm the Shiite party.
After an August 24 gunfight between supporters of Hezbollah and those of Sunni faction Al-Ahbash — two Syrian-backed parties loosely allied in Lebanon — western-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri launched a campaign calling for Beirut to be stripped of its omnipresent weapons.
But Hezbollah has cautioned the Hariri camp against making mention of its military prowess.
"As usual, the situation is very, very precarious on all levels," said Sahar Atrache, Middle East and North Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group.
"Having these weapons spread everywhere is alarming, especially as security and stability in Lebanon are clearly not under control," Atrache told AFP in Beirut.
"And again, what we do in Lebanon is try to handle the immediate consequences of the situation, and not the overall situation."
The four-hour street battle began as a row over a parking space in the west Beirut district of Burj Abi Haidar last week and saw automatic machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades surface in the streets.
The violence raised fears of a repeat of May 2008, when gunmen supporting a Hezbollah-led alliance clashed with supporters of the Sunni prime minister.
Close to 100 people died in the week-long battle which saw the Hezbollah camp seize control of much of west Beirut.
A slew of ministers and security officials held meetings this week to forge an agreement on arms control in the capital, but failed to announce what measures, if any, the state would take.
The latest clash also sparked a harsh exchange of words between Hariri’s Saudi-backed bloc and Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
"It is unacceptable that anyone go too far in their initiatives, which have no point but to complicate internal politics and increase mistrust among the Lebanese," said Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad.
Hezbollah is the only Lebanese party that refused to disarm after the 1975-1990 civil war.
The Shiite party, which has two ministers in the government, argues its weapons are necessary to defend Lebanon against Israel with which it fought a devastating war in 2006.
The prime minister’s camp for its part has backpedaled on its insistence on Beirut as an arms-free zone.
"The resistance (Hezbollah) is aimed at Israel. Arms in back alleys cannot be part of the arms of the resistance," MP Ammar Houry of Hariri’s bloc told AFP on Wednesday.
"But it is not us who will translate this notion into action. It is up to the army command to decide how to act from here on."
And while experts doubt that Beirut will ever be a city with effective state arms control, rapprochement between regional powerhouses Syria and Saudi Arabia, which back Lebanon’s two main coalitions, can at least help contain the situation.
"Beirut, like Lebanon, will not be arms-free but… the Burj Abi Haidar incident might be a way to pressure Hezbollah to reduce its presence in Beirut, especially in Sunni neighborhoods… and give the army support to play a moderately stronger role," said Paul Salem, who heads the Carnegie Middle East Centre.
"This effort is probably enjoying backing from Syria and Saudi Arabia," which have recently rekindled ties, Salem added.
"I think this is significant not because it’s going to remove all arms from Beirut but because it might shift the way the city is handled a bit, between its politics and its weapons."
