A senior lebanese military official says clashes have erupted outside the Iranian embassy in the capital between protesters opposing Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian war and unidentified locals, killing one demonstrator.
The official identified the man killed as a 28-year-old from the small lebanese Option Party which had called for the Sunday anti-Hezbollah protest. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The protest at the embassy coincided with another small rally in downtown Beirut also criticizing Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria’s conflict.
Hezbollah’s overt participation in the fighting in Syria has increasingly heightened political and sectarian tensions in lebanon. Clashes in north lebanon have intensified since Hezbollah said last month it would side with Syria’s President Bashar Assad until he defeats the rebels who seek his removal.
A top Opposition military commander said that the Syrian Opposition will not agree to take part in the proposed peace conference unless its forces get new weapons. “If we don’t receive ammunition and weapons to change the position on the ground, to change the balance on the ground, very frankly I can say we will not go to Geneva,” Free Syrian Army commander Gen. Salim Idris told the New York Times in a phone interview.
“There will be no Geneva.” “What can we ask for when we go very weak to GenevaIJ” he went on. “The Russians and the Iranians and the representatives of the regime will say: ‘You don’t have any power. We are controlling everything. What you are coming to ask forIJ’.”