5 dead in Beirut after shootings break out during protests over blast investigation
Global News
Gunfire broke out in Beirut, Lebanon Thursday which saw at least five people killed, the country's interior minister told reporters.
Lebanon’s interior minister says five people have been killed in armed clashes in Beirut that erupted Thursday during protests against the lead investigator into last year’s massive blast at the city’s port.
Bassam Mawlawi told reporters Thursday that many of those injured were shot by snipers from buildings. He called the events, “a very dangerous sign.”
The protest was organized by the militant Shiite group Hezbollah and its ally, the Shiite Amal Movement. They both want the lead investigator, Judge Tarek Bitar, removed from the port blast investigation.
The exchanges of fire involving snipers, pistols, Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades were a dangerous escalation of tensions over the domestic probe, and the worst armed clashes since 2008, when the Shiite Hezbollah briefly overran parts of Beirut.
It was not immediately clear how Thursday’s clashes began, but tensions had been running high after the Hezbollah group and its Shiite allies from the Amal Militia called for a protest near the Justice Palace, along a former civil war front-line between Muslim Shiite and Christian areas.
In a statement Thursday, the two groups said their protesters came under fire from snipers deployed over rooftops in the Tayouneh area.
Gunfire echoed in the capital for several hours and ambulances, sirens wailing, rushed to pick up casualties. Snipers shot from buildings. Bullets penetrated apartment windows in the area. Four projectiles fell near a private French school, Freres of Furn el Chebbak, causing panic, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The students huddled in the central corridors with the windows open to avoid major impact, in scenes reminiscent of the 1975-90 civil war. Smoke covered the neighborhood where intense gunfire was relentless. A car caught fire, while a blaze was reported in a lower floor where residents were stuck and called for help.