BEIRUT: The death toll has risen to three in a clash between Shiite group Hezbollah and a small Sunni outfit in Beirut, reportedly sparked by a row over a parking space, a party official said on Wednesday.
Sheikh Abdel Qader al-Fakhani, a spokesman of the Syrian-backed Sunni group Al-Ahbash, told local radio that two Hezbollah members and a partisan of his group were killed in the clashes on Tuesday night.
Lebanese soldiers were deployed in force on Wednesday in tension-gripped Beirut ahead of the funerals of the three victims.
The clashes were the worst violence to grip the capital since May 2008 when 100 people were killed in battles between supporters of a Hezbollah-led alliance and those of Lebanon’s pro-Western Sunni Prime Minister, Saad Hariri.
Tuesday’s fighting with automatic arms and grenades broke out in the mainly Muslim west Beirut district of Burj Abi Haidar, a stronghold of parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri’s Shia Amal movement, which is allied with Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah victims have been identified as Mohammed Fawaz, the Shia party’s representative to Burj Abi Haidar, and Ali Jawad. The third man who died was named as Ahmed Omayrat of Al-Ahbash.
Partisans of the two movements — both close to Damascus — used shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns in four hours of fighting that erupted at 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) and also left 10 people wounded.
Witnesses said the clash began as an argument between Fawaz and supporters of the Sunni group over a parking space near a mosque used by Al-Ahbash.
Hezbollah and Al-Ahbash, which calls itself a charitable group promoting Islamic culture, said in a joint statement that Tuesday’s "regrettable incident was isolated and did not have any political or confessional basis."
Meanwhile, one person was wounded as two grenade explosions shook the north Lebanon port city of Tripoli, a security official said Wednesday, and hours after a clash in the capital Beirut left three dead.
"A first blast went off at 11:00 pm (2000 GMT) Tuesday but did not result in any injuries, followed by a grenade explosion at 8:00 (0500 GMT) this morning which wounded a 26-year-old woman," the official told AFP, requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak with the press.
He said the woman, who is in a stable condition in hospital, was injured by a grenade placed in a tank containing fuel in Hayy al-Amrikan, a neighbourhood that houses Lebanon’s Alawite Muslims, a community supported by Syria.
The Lebanese press on Wednesday expressed surprise the latest round of violence pitted supporters of two groups with similar lines against each other.
"Politically, the big surprise was the outbreak of the confrontation between two close allies with similar political inclinations, special ties to Syria, and especially a similar position against" Hariri’s moderate Future Movement, said Al-Akhbar, a newspaper close to Hezbollah.
"The use of medium-range weapons in religious centers, shops and homes shows that the pot is ready to boil over at any moment, even if the incident was described as personal," warned An-Nahar, close to a Hariri-led alliance.
Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful political and military force, is backed by Syria and Iran, while the pro-Syrian Al-Ahbash won a seat in parliament amid a widespread boycott of the 1992 general election but lost it in the 1996 poll.
Al-Ahbash emerged in 1983 and gathered strength during Syria’s military deployment in Lebanon, which ended under international pressure after the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, the current prime minister’s father.
The movement has since lost considerable weight.
