LEBANON:After a day of clashes the Lebanese city reclaims its title of "capital of street fighting", writes Ghaith Abdul Ahadin Beirut
LESS THAN 10 minutes after Hassan Nasrallah finished his speech, the message reached the fighters on the ground.
Standing in the Corniche al Mazra'a, a shopping avenue which separates Sunni from Shia areas in west Beirut, a Hizbullah commander with a wary face said: "The war has begun."
Hours earlier he had been directing dozens of street thugs from the Amal movement armed with knives and stones, as they burned tyres and rubbish containers in demonstrations against the pro-western government.
Like a traffic conductor, he organised the stone throwing at Sunnis across the street, raising his arm for a volley to start and then pushing back the teenagers to stop. But Nasrallah's speech put an end to that. The teenagers disappeared and in their place, about 20 Shia gunmen, Hizbullah gunmen, took up their positions on the street corners. The game had changed.
"Wait!" the commander called, "don't start shooting before the army withdraws". As soon as the last of the soldiers separating the groups ran into armoured vehicles, the fighting began.
Amal Shia fighters in their designer sunglasses, jeans and US military boots started firing their Kalashnikovs and M16 rifles.
"Wait!" shouted the commander, a mobile phone on one ear, radio on the other, "the army is still withdrawing". "Why are they still here?" asked a fighter as he emptied his magazine from behind the corner of a building. A picture of the prime minister could be seen across the road where Sunni fighters from the Future movement fired back. At least five Shia policemen, from a unit allied with the leader of Amal, joined the fight. Still in government uniforms, they took positions and fired at the Sunnis.
"Haj, they are hiding behind that van," said one of them, addressing the commander. "Where is the B7 [ Lebanese speak for the Russian rocket-propelled grenade]?" shouted a fighter.
A young man in a balaclava brought the rocket launcher forward - on his back a sack filled with rockets. A policeman took it on his shoulder as three fighters ran into the street firing continuously, providing him with cover. An explosion followed and the rocket seared across the road. The van went up in flames.
Sniper rounds, fired from the Sunni side, hit the streets in front of the fighters - whipping the air with ricochets.
As night fell the radio crackled with good news for the Hizbullah commander: other Shia units had taken Sunni positions in the south and were pushing to the west. "We are trying to clear the area from the thorns in our side, we are just attacking the Future headquarters, we are not attacking the civilians. We started yesterday and by God we will finish them soon."
On the street the battle raged with attack followed by counter-attack. The early morning brought light rain and the realisation that Beirut had so quickly reclaimed the title of capital of street fighting. Bullet cases littered the road. By now Shia fighters were in full control.
In Hamra, the main boulevard and the heart of Sunni Beirut, Hizbullah fighters in camouflage carried rocket launchers and M16s alongside the shops. The fighters, previously only seen on Hizbullah propaganda war footage or on the front lines with Israel during the war, were now patrolling alongside designer clothes stores.
An air of defeat hung over the Sunni areas. "The Shia have won," said one young man, in Tareeq Jedida area on the Sunni side of Corniche al-Mazra'a. "They [ the Sunnis] pay me $100 to fight, the Shia are fighting for their beliefs, and man, they have been fighting for 25 years; we can't match them." - (Guardian service)