3 killed in Hezbollah, Sunni clashes in Beirut
The death toll has risen to three in a clash between Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah and a small Sunni outfit in Beirut, reportedly sparked by a row over a parking space, a party official said on Wednesday.
Sheikh Abdel Qader al-Fakhani, a spokesman of the Syrian-backed Sunni group Al-Ahbash, told local radio that two Hezbollah members and a partisan of his group were killed in the clashes on Tuesday night.
The fighting with automatic arms and grenades broke out in the mainly Muslim west Beirut neighbourhood of Burj Abi Haidar, a stronghold of parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri's Shiite Amal movement, which is allied with Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah victims have been identified as Mohammed Fawaz, the Shiite party's representative to Burj Abi Haidar, and Ali Jawad.
Partisans of the two movements used shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns in about four hours of fighting that erupted at 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) and also left 10 people wounded.
Witnesses said the clash began as an argument between Fawaz and supporters of the Sunni group over a parking space near a mosque frequented by Al-Ahbash.
Hezbollah and Al-Ahbash, which calls itself a charitable group promoting Islamic culture, said in a joint statement that Tuesday's "regrettable incident was isolated and did not have any political or confessional basis."
Hezbollah, Lebanon's most powerful political and military force, is backed by Syria and Iran.
Al-Ahbash won a seat in parliament in 1992 amid a widespread boycott of the general election. It lost the seat in 1996.
The group first emerged in 1983 and gathered strength during the Syrian military presence in Lebanon, which ended under international pressure following the 2005 assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.
The movement has since lost considerable weight.
