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Perhaps the Lebanese government is tiring of the state-within-a-state.
An update on this story. " Gunbattles break out in Beirut," from CNN, May 8:
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Gunfire broke out in downtown Beirut on Thursday after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said recent government actions amount to "a declaration of open war."
There are reports of open street battles in at least one neighborhood. Video showed people throwing stones at each other, as Lebanese soldiers used tear gas to disperse the crowds.
The violence is limited to Beirut's Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods and has continued into the evening hours.
Shortly after Nasrallah's speech, CNN's Cal Perry reported from Sodeco Square in downtown Beirut during an intense gun battle.
"Just in the past few minutes ... things have gotten a lot worse," he said, taking cover with the Lebanese army. He said government forces have not reacted to the violence.
The Lebanese army, which is charged with trying to keep peace in the capital, is in a precarious position, Perry explained.
"When you're talking about this much gunfire, when you're talking about [rocket-propelled grenades] fire, it's absolutely ludicrous to think that the army will put themselves between these two factions," he said.
Video of the scene showed empty streets and shuttered stores. There were no reports of violence in Beirut's Christian neighborhoods. Witnesses and journalists described a long line of cars on the main road leading out of Beirut after the violence broke out.
In his televised speech, Nasrallah offered harsh words for the government, blaming it for declaring war by banning Hezbollah's telecommunications system.
"We believe the war has started, and we believe that we have the right to defend ourselves," the Hezbollah leader said. "We will cut the hand that will reach out to the weapons of the resistance, no matter if it comes from the inside or the outside."
Posted by Marisol at May 8, 2008 6:42 PM
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At least we don't have any troops to get in the middle of this one. I hope they kill each other good. Scum.
Posted by: jewdog![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 8, 2008 6:58 PM
This is what Muslims do. The devil eats his own.
Posted by: jpatches at May 8, 2008 7:07 PM
A great excuse for Syria to place boots on Lebanese ground again, in the name of "restoring peace and stability". This latest conflict is bad news for Israel, because rockets fired on its northern towns would be considered as stray projectiles in an unrelated conflict, and therefore retaliation would be considered unjustified and disproportionate by the "world community"...
Posted by: US_infidel at May 8, 2008 8:14 PM
If it weren't for the fact that the remaining Maronite and other Christians will most certainly be attacked by both sides of this fight, and that the warring Muslim factions will blame all their very own murderous aggression and infighting on 1. their hapless Christian neighbours 2. the JOOOZ 3. AMERIKKA! , I would wish them a long and healthy war.
Mark Twain, in the 'Innocents Abroad', did not only visit Turkish-Muslim-occupied eretz Israel; he made various observations upon the state of things in what are now Lebanon and Syria.
The place was in ruins - morally, ecologically, socially and politically. Dreadful misgovernment and selfish despotism, generation after generation. Christians and Jews struggled under the crushing burden of the dhimma.
One little snippet from an un-PC history book, concerning what those supposedly 'tolerant' Ottoman Turkish Muslims did to the people (many of them Christian) of the Lebanon, during World War One - I quote:
'When World War One broke out the people of Lebanon entered a terrible time. In 1917 the Turks tried to seize the crops, but both in Lebanon and in the Hauran this was resisted; so in 1917 they [the Turks] drew a cordon around the Lebanon and endeavoured to starve out the people. Then for the first time in their history Maronite and Druze united. They not only refused to fight in the Turkish armies , but, hampering them by every means in their power, rendered great assistance to the allies.
'When Allenby's troops entered Beirut they found the native population starving. It is said that in that city alone during two years 25 000 people died of starvation, and in the Lebanon as a whole, what with the failure of some of the crops through the locusts, and with the epidemics of typhoid and typhus, it has been estimated that war, pestilence and famine swept away TWO-FIFTHS of the population." - Lands and Peoples, Vol III, 'The Near and Middle East', pp. 321-322.
One should note that at that time a much greater proportion of Lebanon's population was Christian; many died as a result of the harsh siege conditions imposed by Turkey; many, after WWI, now that they *could* leave, left Lebanon for places like Australia and the USA and Latin America, opening the way for an ever-escalating Islamisation of Lebanon itself, that proceeds to this day.
And of course, now that Muslims make up a much bigger proportion of Lebanon's population, the Jews have all been driven out, and the Christians are reduced to a tiny ever-shrinking remnant, what are the Muslims doing? - they are going to war on EACH OTHER.
Ah, the peace and compassion of Islam, the loving brotherhood of the ummah.
at May 8, 2008 8:25 PM
What a great opportunity for Iran to draw Israel and the U.S. into a massive confrontation. And, as always, they'll be the 'victims'.
at May 8, 2008 9:25 PM
"They" being the Iranians.
Posted by: firecrackerjane at May 8, 2008 9:28 PM
Support the Sunni's. Help Brother fight Brother. Just feed their need with the required Tools.
at May 8, 2008 9:31 PM
Hezbollah has been trying to dominate and overthrow the Lebanese government for years now. That is the problem. It isn't Syria. It is Iran. If Hezbollah can wrest control of Lebanon, then Iran has 2 puppet states to attack Israel from. Lebanon in the North and Gaza in the South. Control of Lebanon would give Hezbollah tanks, artillery and planes in which they could launch an attack. This attack could be in conjunction with a similar attack from Gaza and/or Iran.
Plus a puppet state of Lebanon in Iran's hands gives Iran an airbase. Making a strike at Israel a certainty.
Let's pray that the Lebanese can stop Hezbollah, or the Second Lebanese War of 2006 will look like a child's game.
Posted by: Mystical Time Traveler at May 8, 2008 9:47 PM
"We believe the war has started, and we believe that we have the right to defend ourselves," the Hezbollah leader said.We know this smart story, the old "self defense" trick.
Talked about it earlier: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/020928.php#c539499
Plus sa change, plus c'est la meme chose. Hopeless.
Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at May 8, 2008 10:16 PM
"We believe the war has started, and we believe that we have the right to defend ourselves," the Hezbollah leader said.
Well then, get on with it. Allah will be with you until the end. The bitter, bitter end...
Posted by: duh_swami at May 9, 2008 12:22 AM
There were no reports of violence in Beirut's Christian neighborhoods.
Well, we know whose side Allah is on!
Posted by: PMK at May 9, 2008 9:18 AM
"Nasrallah says "war has started"
what is he talking about?..the last one isn't over yet.
at May 9, 2008 3:40 PM
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