Eight Lebanese opposition supporters were shot dead in Beirut on Sunday. A senior opposition source said all the victims were members of Hizbullah or Amal -- Shi'ite groups leading a power struggle with the anti-Damascus governing coalition for more than a year. At least 29 more people were hurt, Reuters reported.
The violence spiralled after an Amal activist was shot dead when the army moved to break up a protest over power cuts. It should be noted that Electricite du Liban, however, denied reports of extended power cuts in the southern suburbs, beyond the sudden outage caused last week when a cable was damaged by drilling, adding that it was promptly repaired. Most of the eight dead activists, all men, were killed in the same area, but it was not clear who was responsible. The army said it was investigating who was behind the shooting.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora called for calm and declared Monday a day of mourning. Schools and universities were to be closed. "In these moments, our country is passing through its most difficult and dangerous times," he said in a statement. "What we have built during the past years is in danger of crumbling." "I call on all the people to put their trust in the army at these most difficult times and await the results of the investigations that the army and the security services are undertaking," Saniora added.
Protesters used blazing tyres to block several main roads, including the highway to the airport. Around 9:30 pm, a group of men, said to be carrying Hizbullah and Amal flags, moved towards Ein el-Rummaneh and one of them tossed a hand grenade on a crowd of men, injuring seven. The protests spread beyond the capital to Shi'ite villages in the south and the Bekaa Valley to the east.
Amal, led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, urged its supporters to leave the streets. "We have no link to this action. We call on people not to react. We call on them to pull out of the streets," senior Amal official Ali Hassan Khalil told Reuters.
Press reports on Monday said Lebanese army troops arrested a large number of men in a wide-scale raid carried out overnight.
Meanwhile in Cairo, Arab foreign ministers backed an Arab League initiative to solve Lebanon's presidential crisis. At an emergency session in the Egyptian capital, the foreign ministers agreed that Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa should press his efforts to help rival parties reach an agreement on the make-up of a cabinet, the draft final communique read.
