almotamar.net Reuters - BEIRUT (Reuters) - Four people were shot dead in clashes between pro- and anti-government activists in Lebanon on Thursday, overshadowing a $7.6 billion aid deal by international donors to shore up the U.S.-backed government.
Two opposition students and two other people, one a government loyalist, were shot dead and 152 were injured, many by gunfire, at Beirut's Arab University, security sources said.
The Lebanese army said a night curfew it declared in Beirut was holding and leaders of both sides appealed for calm.
A campaign led by Shi'ite Hezbollah and Christian allies against the government, which is struggling to get over year's war with Israel, has raised tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Lebanon, still recovering from a 1975-90 civil war.
Fighting started between students with sticks and stones on the university campus then spilled into nearby streets. It developed into exchanges of gunfire from assault rifles and pistols involving students and residents from both sides.
It was not clear who fired first but television stations run by the opposition blamed the deaths on pro-government gunmen.
Soldiers fired into the air to try to disperse the crowds and were later deployed in large numbers in an effort to control the clashes. Thick smoke rose from the area, where rioters had set cars and tyres ablaze.
Soldiers used military trucks to evacuate scores of civilians trapped on the streets by the violence.
Rival television stations blamed each other's camps for the fighting. Witnesses reported shots fired at students from rooftops in the mainly Sunni areas and attacks by a Shi'ite mob on a Sunni-run school in another area of the capital.
Government loyalists hurled Molotov cocktails at an office of a pro-Syrian party in a Sunni neighbourhood of the capital setting the building on fire, witnesses said.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah issued a religious edict, or fatwa, urging supporters to leave the streets and stay calm. Sunni leader Saad al-Hariri urged supporters to show self-restraint and calm.
"What everyone should do now is halt the strife ... We must all be united or we have to look for our country in the graveyard of history," Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Shi'ite opposition leader, told local television stations by telephone.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said from Paris where he was at an aid conference: "I call on everyone to return to the voice of reason."
The clashes died down after the appeals and curfew but tension in Beirut neighbourhoods was high after darkness.
An army spokesman said the curfew took effect at 8:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) and would last until 6 a.m. on Friday. He said the curfew was holding.
DIM PROSPECTS
"It's a powder keg," analyst Oussama Safa told Reuters. "It doesn't seem to be a political decision to let it go there. It's spontaneous street violence."
The opposition launched nationwide protests on Tuesday which shut down much of Lebanon and sparked violence in which three people were killed and 176 wounded.
The opposition wants veto power in government and early parliamentary elections to topple Siniora's cabinet. The prime minister and his main backer, parliamentary majority leader Hariri, have refused to give in to the demands.
Lebanon won more than $7.6 billion in grants and soft loans at the Paris conference.
Saudi Arabia headed the list of donors with a promise of $1.1 billion of development aid and grants, the United States pledged $770 million and the Arab Monetary Fund and World Bank offered funding of around $700 million apiece.
"The total sum collected for Lebanon amounts to a little more than $7.6 billion," French President Jacques Chirac told the conference after around 40 countries and organisations outlined their funding plans.
"I'm overjoyed by this," he added to loud applause.
Lebanon is still struggling to rebuild from its 1975-1990 civil war and is weighed down by $40 billion of debt, equal to 180 percent of gross domestic product.
War between Israel and Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas last year left much of the country's infrastructure bombed and many Shi'ite villages and districts wrecked.
Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the Security Council president for January, said several delegates expressed concern about the violence in Beirut.
"For us, this is particularly sad that this is taking place against the backdrop of Paris," Churkin told reporters. "It is a very disconcerting development."