At least one person was killed and six injured on Saturday in a powerful blast that shook a residential building in the Lebanese city of Tripoli.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a flying viisit to Beirut, said on Monday she wanted to back Lebanon’s democratic institutions.
Lebanon’s Parliament is set to elect army chief General Michel Suleiman as the country’s president on Sunday, filling a post left vacant for six months by a political crisis that threatened a new civil war. A Qatari-brokered deal last week between rival Lebanese leaders defused 18 months of political stalemate that erupted into fighting this month.
Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri pledged on Tuesday there would be no political surrender to what he called a bid by Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian backers to impose their will on the nation by force. The Shi’ite Hezbollah group and its opposition allies have routed supporters of the Sunni-led government in Beirut.
Lebanon’s army stepped up patrols on Tuesday as part of a drive to restore order after a week of fighting between Hezbollah fighters and pro-government gunmen. Hezbollah, the Shi’ite Muslim movement backed by Iran and Syria, and its opposition allies have routed supporters of the Sunni-led government in Beirut and hills to the east.
Clashes resumed in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli on Monday and security sources said at least 36 people had been killed on Sunday in fighting between Hezbollah and its pro-government Druze opponents east of Beirut. A precarious calm prevailed in Beirut, where politicians prepared to meet Arab League mediators.
Fierce battles raged in northern Lebanon on Sunday between rival clans as the Hezbollah-led opposition said it was ending its takeover of west Beirut. The opposition announced that it was ending its takeover of large swaths of west Beirut after the army revoked government moves against the Shi’ite group that sparked days of deadly fighting.
Lebanon was steeped in tension on Saturday after Hezbollah seized control of west Beirut in three days of deadly fighting with pro-government forces, triggering fears of all-out civil war. At least 18 people were killed in the violence that erupted on Wednesday and quickly escalated.
Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah took control of the Muslim part of Beirut on Friday, tightening its grip on the city in a major blow to the United States-backed government. Security sources said at least 11 people had been killed and 30 wounded in three days of battles between pro-government gunmen and fighters loyal to Hezbollah.
The Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Thursday the United States-supported Beirut government had declared war by targeting its communications network. Hezbollah launched a new street campaign on Wednesday, piling pressure on the government after it declared the network illegal.
Supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah blocked main roads in Beirut with burning barricades on Wednesday, paralysing the city and deepening the pro-Iranian group’s conflict with the United States-backed government. They set ablaze old cars and tyres to block the main road to Beirut’s international airport, where air traffic was suspended because of a strike
Lebanon’s presidential election was postponed to March 25 from Tuesday, the Parliament speaker said on Monday, the 16th delay of a vote derailed by the worst political crisis since the 1975 to 1990 civil war. The new election date set by speaker Nabih Berri is just four days before an Arab summit in Damascus.
Lebanon’s political crisis has turned into an economic nightmare for the vital tourist industry, hard hit by a slump in tourists from oil-rich Gulf states who have been told to avoid the troubled country. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain have advised their citizens not to travel to a country in the grip of its worst political crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990.
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/ 29 February 2008
The pro-Iranian Hezbollah group accused the United States on Friday of endangering regional stability by deploying a warship off Lebanon and vowed to defy what it called an act of military intimidation. Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, leads a Lebanese opposition locked in a 15-month-old power struggle with the Western-backed governing coalition.
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/ 14 February 2008
Three years after Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination, the crisis unleashed by his death opens ever deeper rifts in Lebanon and threatens the state and society the leader tried to rebuild after the civil war. The February 14 anniversary of al-Hariri’s death has become a symbol for divisions between the heirs to his legacy and their opponents.
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/ 15 January 2008
At least three people were killed in an explosion that damaged a United States diplomatic car in Beirut on Tuesday and wounded a US passenger, security sources said. The sources said a total of 16 people were wounded in the explosion, which occurred in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut. They said no US personnel were killed.
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/ 12 December 2007
A car bomb killed a Lebanese general in a Christian suburb overlooking Beirut on Wednesday, removing a leading contender to take over as army chief from General Michel Suleiman when he becomes president. The attack heightened tension in Lebanon where rival leaders are embroiled in a tussle over the Presidency.
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/ 12 December 2007
At least four people were killed and more than 10 wounded in an explosion in a Christian town east of Beirut on Wednesday, security sources said. The sources said the blast in Baabda, the site of Lebanon’s presidential palace on the outskirts of the capital, was caused by an explosive device.
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/ 24 November 2007
Lebanon edged closer to chaos on Friday when President Emile Lahoud ordered the army to take charge of security after political rivalries blocked the election of his successor hours before his term expired. The pro-Syrian head of state said the country risked descending into a state of emergency.
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/ 23 November 2007
Lebanon again postponed an election to choose a new head of state by a midnight Friday deadline amid continuing deadlock between rival political factions and fears of a dangerous power vacuum. The country’s pro-Syrian President, Emile Lahoud, plans to step down when his term expires at midnight.
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/ 15 October 2007
Lebanon said on Monday it had arrested a gang of foreigners who were plotting attacks on United Nations peacekeepers, four months after six troops were killed in a bombing against a Spanish contingent. ”The Lebanese army’s secret service arrested a network of non-Lebanese terrorists,” the army said.
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/ 10 October 2007
Dozens of families, many of them empty-handed, returned on Wednesday to a bombed-out Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon that was the scene of 15 weeks of fierce battles between the army and Islamist militants. Buses and mini-vans hired by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency picked up the first families from the Beddawi refugee camp.
Forest fires blazed in several areas of Lebanon on Tuesday, including around the ancient town of Deir al-Qamar, a world heritage site. ”Most of Deir al-Qamar is engulfed in thick, black smoke. There’s not one wooded area left. Some villas are ablaze, cars are burnt, the phone and electricity lines are burnt,” resident Joseph al-Itr told Reuters by telephone.
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/ 20 September 2007
Lebanon mourned on Thursday an anti-Syrian member of Parliament whose assassination plunged the country deeper into crisis and threatened to derail efforts to elect a new president. Banks, schools and government offices closed a day after a car bomb killed Christian Phalange Party parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem.
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/ 19 September 2007
A car bomb killed an anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmaker and at least six other people in Beirut on Wednesday, just six days before Parliament was due to elect a new president, security sources said. The lawmaker, Antoine Ghanem of the Christian Phalange party, was killed by the blast in a Christian district of the Lebanese capital.
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/ 19 September 2007
A car bomb exploded in the Christian eastern part of Beirut on Wednesday, killing at least five people and wounding four in an attack that may have targeted a political figure, security sources said. Television footage showed several cars on fire and bodies being carried away from the scene.
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/ 12 September 2007
Two more soldiers have died in Lebanon’s military operations against the Fatah al-Islam militia, bringing the death toll to 165 troops, a military spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”One soldier died from wounds on Monday, while another one was killed by a landmine on Tuesday,” he said.
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/ 3 September 2007
The Lebanese army said on Monday it lost 163 soldiers in battles against radical Islamist militants at a refugee camp in northern Lebanon and hundreds more were injured. ”We have 163 soldiers killed in the battles at the camp,” an army spokesperson said.
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/ 2 September 2007
At least 20 Islamist militants and two Lebanese soldiers were killed on Sunday in a battle near a Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, a security source said. The Fatah al-Islam militants had been attempting to flee the Nahr al-Bared camp, where they have been battling the army for more than three months.
The Lebanese army resumed its air raids and shelling of militants holed up at Nahr al-Bared on Saturday after evacuating the last remaining civilians from the battered refugee camp. Helicopters carried out repeated raids dropping 250kg and 400kg bombs on the small area still controlled by the al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militants.
The families of Islamist fighters besieged in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon were evacuated by the army on Friday, opening the way for a possible final military assault. The military agreed to a temporary truce on Friday with the Fatah al-Islam fighters to allow the civilians to leave the camp.
The Lebanese army shelled al-Qaeda-inspired militants cornered in small parts of a Palestinian refugee camp on Thursday and security sources said two more soldiers were killed in the fighting. They said one soldier was killed on Wednesday and the body of another was pulled from rubble in Nahr al-Bared camp, raising the army toll to 111 dead.