Beirut tension – neighbor to neighbor
Posted: Thursday, January 25, 2007 2:18 PM
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Beirut, Lebanon
By Moustafa Kassem, NBC News Beirut Bureau Coordinator
There is tension on every street in west Beirut, not only at the Arab University when the incident between the government and opposition supporters happened Thursday.
In each area and on each block there are Hariri’s people here (Saad Hariri is the leader of the parliamentary majority and the leading Sunni opponent of Hezbollah), and Hezbollah people there. So there is tension in every street.
The army has now taken over. They pushed back the young men and boys and sent them home. So there is an appeal from all of the leaders in Lebanon – including Hariri, Nabih Berri, the House Speaker, and Hezbollah to calm the streets. But the tension is still there.
After 2:30 p.m. – when we heard the news about the clash at the Arab University – everybody just left work and went back home. So there was a huge traffic jam from east to west. It took me about two-and-a-half hours instead of about four minutes to pick up my kids from school.
So, everything is pretty crazy in the city. Now all of the streets are empty. Most of the streets are now full of the army on patrol.
Scary part – neighbor vs. neighbor
In the summer there was the Israeli bombing, But this fighting from street to street, from neighbor to neighbor – this is the scary part.
If you want to go to your office, you have to cross like five checkpoints. You cross Hariri’s people, you cross the Shiites.
There is absolutely tension in Beirut. But, for now it’s calmed down a little bit. The army has taken over and all the leaders have asked their people to pull out from the street. So we have to wait a few hours to see what their action will be after their appeal.
