Lebanon on a knife-edge as Arab ministers bid to end crisis

BEIRUT - Lebanon was on a knife-edge on Monday after days of deadly sectarian battles that have driven the nation to the brink of civil war, as Arab ministers prepared to send in a team to try to end the crisis.
While Beirut was calm, Lebanese troops moved into the Druze mountains southeast of the capital after supporters of the Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition engaged in heavy fighting on Sunday.
Many people have fled the region, where homes were hit by rockets, shop windows broken and cars set ablaze in the weekend firefights.
"Even the Israelis didn't do this to us," said one elderly Druze woman in the town of Shwayfat. "They (Hezbollah) came into our homes, terrified our children and broke everything."
In Beirut, there was an uneasy calm although schools and some businesses remained shut following five days of unrest that has left 47 people dead and scores wounded in the worst sectarian violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The showdown between Hezbollah and the ruling bloc saw the powerful Shia militant group seize large swathes of Muslim west Beirut last week, dramatically raising the stakes in the country's 18-month political crisis.
Clashes turned deadly in Beirut last Thursday after Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the government of effectively declaring war against his party, and spread to other parts of Lebanon at the weekend.
But opposition fighters withdrew from the capital's streets on Saturday after the Lebanese army acted to overturn two government measures against the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah that triggered the fighting.
Some barricades put up by Hezbollah fighters and their allies remained and the road to Beirut international airport was shut for the sixth straight day, reflecting a continuing protest campaign by the opposition.
The Masnaa border crossing with Syria was also blocked.
In the northern port city of Tripoli, which has also been rocked by sectarian clashes, a security official said three cars with Syrian licence plates came under fire on Monday, leaving three people wounded.
Such incidents have raised fears the situation could escalate again against the backdrop of seething hatred between Sunnis who support the ruling bloc and Shias who back the opposition.
Sunni Islamist groups in Tripoli on Sunday declared that they were launching their own resistance to defend the country.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora accused his opposition rivals of staging a "coup" in the multi-confessional nation, which has been without a president for six months because of the political standoff.
The crisis is widely seen as an extension of the regional confrontation pitting the United States and its Arab allies against Syria and Iran.
US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe at the weekend blamed Hezbollah, saying: "They continue to be a destabilising force there with the backing of their supporters, Iran and Syria."
Arab foreign ministers said after crisis talks in Cairo that they will send a high-level delegation to Beirut headed by Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa in a bid to end a long-standing political deadlock.
A resolution urged Lebanese politicians "to attend a meeting with a ministerial delegation... in order to discuss the dangerous situation in Lebanon and draw up an urgent roadmap to implement the Arab initiative."
These talks would bring together three opposition stalwarts -- parliament speaker Nabih Berri, Christian leader Michel Aoun and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah -- with Siniora, parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri and former president Amin Gemayel.
Meanwhile a US warship, which was deployed off Lebanon in February amid concern over Lebanon's political crisis, crossed Egypt's Suez Canal on Sunday on its way to the Mediterranean, an official with the canal authority told AFP.The Lebanese daily As-Safir, which is close to the opposition, questioned whether the return of the warship would not encourage the government in its showdown with Hezbollah.
The government last week said it would investigate a telephone network run by Hezbollah and reassign the airport security chief over his alleged links to the militant group.
Lebanon's political standoff, which erupted in November 2006 when six pro-Syrian ministers quit, has left it without a president since November, when Damascus protege Emile Lahoud stepped down at the end of his term.
Lebanon's parliament is due to meet on Tuesday in its 19th attempt to choose a successor to Lahoud but it is now not clear whether the session will take place.