Hezbollah Leads a Fiery Strike

Photos
Strike Turns Violent in Beirut
Hezbollah-backed protesters seeking to unseat the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called for a strike across Lebanon on Tuesday, blocking highways and sparking clashes that killed at least two people and injured 100 or more.

Hezbollah and its allies launched the campaign against Siniora's government with a sprawling protest in downtown Beirut on Dec. 1. Another one, possibly the largest in Lebanese history, followed Dec. 10, along with a sit-in that continues today in scores of tents pitched at the foot of the barricaded government headquarters.

The government has viewed it as a power grab through the street, vowing not to resign under pressure, and government-allied newspapers routinely refer to the opposition as coup plotters. But the opposition has its own collection of complaints, including what Hezbollah sees as Siniora's subservience to the United States and complicity in Israel's attack, as well as the populist economic grievances stressed by Aoun's supporters.

By any standard, Tuesday's campaign was a feat of logistics on parallel with December's protests. In addition to shutting down the capital, the vital thoroughfare to the Syrian capital, Damascus, was cut, and allied groups blocked roads in predominantly Sunni Muslim areas such as Tripoli and Akkar.

Virtually the only cars on the road to the airport were the incinerated carcasses of vehicles used as barricades, some of them sitting next to a smashed sign that read, "Beirut International Airport."

Hezbollah officials said privately that the strike was timed in part to embarrass the government ahead of Thursday's conference in Paris to consider what Lebanese officials hope will be $5 billion in grants and loans for reconstruction. The government, its priority mainly survival at this point, has made the conference, along with an international court to try the killers of a former Lebanese prime minister, its primary goals.

As the day dragged on, some of the barricades were removed or abandoned, and a smattering of traffic returned to the streets. But this faint sense of a typical weekday followed the worst violence since the opposition began its campaign.

At a road along Death River, one of the city's entrances, Christian foes and supporters of the government fought occasional melees with stones before the army intervened. With sticks, rocks and fists, crowds of government supporters attacked cars that carried orange banners, the color of Aoun, Hezbollah's ally. His partisans, tending blazing barricades, refused to make way for soldiers trying to open the road.

"There is a saying in Lebanon that goes, 'It doesn't get smaller unless it gets bigger,' " said Nayla Abiaad, a 25-year-old Aoun supporter standing at the barricade.

Her sister, Rana, dressed in orange, stood next to her. "This is bigger," she said, smiling, as she pointed at burning tires, "and there's going to be more."

Across town, in the neighborhood of Mazraa, Sunni and Shiite residents fought a battle with rocks that lasted nearly two hours. By its end, they were separated by armored personnel carriers, a charred, rubble-strewn street, a dirt lot and the stones they threw.

In seemingly contradictory ways, the crisis has both politicized and disillusioned the country. Few people are without opinions on the righteousness of one side or the other, but tens of thousands have emigrated since the war ended last summer. Chantal Braidi, a 31-year-old cafe owner in Beirut, called the country "dead."

"I want to live in this country, and it hurts me to leave -- I'm leaving all my family and friends behind -- but I want to live my life," she said. "Everything I have, I put in this country. What did I get in return? Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"I'm leaving for my sanity," she added. "We're going crazy in this country."

Special correspondents Alia Ibrahim and Lynn Maalouf contributed to this report.