Lebanese army comes under attack,

From Monsters and Critics.com

Middle East News
Lebanese army comes under attack, army sources say
By DPA
Feb 2, 2008, 12:09 GMT

Beirut - The Lebanese army has been attacked at least three times in the past 48 hours in and around Beirut that saw clashes between pro-Syrian protestors and Lebanese soldiers last week, an army source said Saturday.

'The army checkpoint near the Mar Mikhail district in Beirut's southern suburbs was targeted by gunshots at dawn Saturday, wounding two soldiers,' the source said.

'This is not the first attack - the same point was targeted by unidentified assailants with two sonic bombs the night before, but no casualties were reported,' the source said.

Tension rose between the army and followers of Lebanon's two main Shiite Muslim groups, Hezbollah and Amal, after a protest over power cuts last Sunday led to the shooting deaths of nine people and the wounding of others, mostly protestors.

Both Amal and Hezbollah have called on the Lebanese army command to open an official investigation into the shootings after accusing the residents of the Christian neighbourhood of Ain Roumneh of firing automatic weapons on the protestors.

A Lebanese security source said a report was handed to Lebanese army commander Michel Suleiman on Saturday with the results of the investigation on who started the shooting.

According to the source, Suleiman has handed the report to Lebanon's State Prosecutor Said Mirza.

The source said the investigations have 'all but ruled out' the presence of snipers in the Mar Mikhail area. 'Neither military nor civilian' snipers were likely involved, as some parties have speculated, the source added.

The source said investigators have concluded that it was 'far- fetched' that any gunfire emanated from Ain Roumneh, a Christian area, adding that the shooting was in fact confined to Mar Mikhail, an area controlled by Hezbollah.

'Investigations have shown that the army did not fire first at protestors, but that soldiers responded to shots fired at them by unknown gunmen from the direction where the protestors were standing,' the source said.

The Lebanese Army rounded up 34 people from the Ain Roumneh district as well as the Mar Mikhail area.

Mirza met Friday with investigators and reviewed the statements of people detained for questioning, including those of soldiers and officers who were on the ground in the area during the riots.

The leading As-Safir newspaper reported Friday that forensics experts have recovered four whole bullets from the bodies of those killed last Sunday. The bullet which killed Amal Movement official Ahmad Hamza, who was slain in the early stages of the riots, was from an AK-47, the paper said.

The AK-47 rifle is usually used by Lebanese militias and not the army.

As-Safir added that the three remaining bullets taken from the bodies of victims Mahmoud Mansour, Mustafa Amhaz and Youssef Choucair, were M-16 rounds, which are commonly used by the Lebanese Army. The bullets that killed the other three victims had either disintegrated inside the bodies or passed straight through and were not recovered.

A Lebanese army source said soldiers caught on camera beating civilians or acting in a 'militia-like' fashion have been detained.

The country has for the last year been engulfed by a sharp political crisis, compounded since November by the failure of parliament to elect a head of state because of disputes between the Western-backed majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition, which has the support of Syria and Iran.

The president's office has been vacant since the last president, Emile Lahoud, stepped down November 23. Another parliamentary session to elect a president has been scheduled for February 11.

The Lebanese rival groups have announced a month ago that army commander Michel Suleiman can be the consensus president for the country, but so far disputes between the rival camps have concerned the government to be formed after Suleiman is elected and the distribution of portfolios among the factions.

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