Sectarian Battles in Beirut

Beirut Arab University's parking lot, scene of heavy fighting

Lebanon's sectarian tension erupted in an open gun battle between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim neighborhoods of Beirut today, forcing the Lebanese army to intervene with heavy machine guns and moving the country closer to outright civil war.

At least four people were shot dead and 30 injured after street fights between students at Beirut Arab University spiraled into low level urban warfare with the arrival of armed fighters from both pro-government and opposition political parties.

Men with automatic weapons fired at each other from across the airport highway, while cars burned in the parking lot at BAU, a largely Sunni institution in a Sunni neighborhood.

Partisans on each side blamed each other for starting the conflict, though many members of the opposition parties, especially supporters of the Shi'ite Amal Movement, appeared to have prepared for a confrontation. Hundreds of young Shi'ite men -- many of them dressed in black in celebration of the Ashura holiday -- formed up at mosques in sounding neighborhoods where Amal party members passed out hard hats and batons, and sent gangs streaming towards the conflict. Sunni residents of Mazraa and Tariq Al Jedide, the scene of sectarian clases om Tuesday, also moved in to join battle, most of them armed with makeshift clubs and rocks.

These Shi'ite boys marching towards the skirmish were later disarmed and beaten by soldiers

By Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut