Druze Lebanese, under fire from Hezbollah fighters, pleaded with the United States for an emergency airlift of weapons over the weekend, illustrating growing fears among Christians, Sunni Arabs and Druze that the hard-line Shi’ite militia was preparing to take over the entire country.
“The government, the prime minister and the democratic forces are in grave danger and being attacked by Hezbollah forces. They’ve taken Beirut. They’ve burned the newspaper and closed the television,” a Lebanese source close to the biggest party in Lebanon’s parliament told The Washington Times.
“If you lose Lebanon, you lose the Middle East. If the U.S. does nothing, this sends a chilling message to the rest of the region.”
Druze leaders based in the mountains near Beirut requested U.S. aid over the weekend, according to documents and e-mails obtained by The Times.
Druze officers said they had “enough men” but were short of supplies and equipment to fight Hezbollah.
In one e-mail to U.S. officials, the group asked for 600 AK-47 assault rifles, 100 sniper rifles, hand grenades and other weapons.
“If you can drop the goods by air during the night to the village of Kfar Nabrakh as soon as possible, because Hezbollah is already one village from the Mukhtara coming from Jezzine area, the sooner the better, the battles are getting heavy around Barouk area as there are many Hezbollah casualties not reported by the media,” a Druze officer said Sunday night in an e-mail. His name was redacted for fear of retribution or death.
The supplies, however, never came. The fighting ended with a hastily arranged cease-fire in which Lebanese army troops moved into the Druze area.
Yesterday, new fighting was reported elsewhere.
President Bush said he would discuss the Lebanon crisis during his visit to the region beginning today.
“It is critical that the international community come together to assist the Lebanese people in their hour of need,” Mr. Bush said. “The international community will not allow the Iranian and Syrian regimes, via their proxies, to return Lebanon to foreign domination and control.
“I strongly condemn Hezbollah’s recent efforts to use violence and intimidation to bend the government and people of Lebanon to their will.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Hezbollah fighters “should not be in the streets.”
“There is a legitimate government of Lebanon, and we are working with others to support and sustain it,” Miss Rice said.
The attacks by Hezbollah to overthrow pro-democratic groups in Lebanon this past week have pushed more moderate leaders, including Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, into a corner, officials in the country said.
More than 50 people have died since fighting erupted Wednesday … first in Beirut, then in the mountains overlooking the city and yesterday in the northern city of Tripoli, the Associated Press reported.
As a deadly calm settled over Beirut, Lebanese were left reeling from the worst sectarian violence since a 15-year civil war ended in 1990.
That war killed 150,000 people and laid waste to many parts of Beirut, leaving the city divided into ethnic and religious districts where people are deeply suspicious of one another, and the new fighting has torn open old wounds.
The civil war ended with a peace agreement in which all sectarian militias, except Hezbollah, gave up their weapons. The exception for Hezbollah was made because they were viewed as a resistance army needed to protect the country from Israel.
Instead, Hezbollah fighters have turned their guns on fellow Lebanese.
Hezbollah’s militiamen “abandoned their cause against Israel and have come to kill us,” Wadad Abdel Nasser Shamaa, a 27-year-old Sunni, told the Associated Press.
Her brother, Mohammed, was killed Thursday night when Hezbollah and its allies swept through a predominantly Sunni neighborhood in Beirut.
Their father, Abdel-Nasser Shamaa, 47, a vegetable vendor, said he once sympathized with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and even pasted a picture of the Shi’ite cleric to his bedroom mirror. He wants to know why his son was killed in what he called indiscriminate shooting by Hezbollah.
The father refused an offer from the Future Movement, led by pro-government Sunni leader Saad Hariri, to pay for his son’s burial and to wrap his coffin in the group’s banner. Instead, Lebanon’s national flag draped the coffin as he buried his son.
Mr. Shamaa said he didn’t want to take sides, stressing that he still respects both Sheik Nasrallah and Mr. Hariri. “In the end we are Muslims,” he said in an AP dispatch from Beirut.
With Beirut and the nearby Druze regions quiet, heavy combat was reported in Tripoli, the country’s second-biggest city.
An estimated 25 to 30 Sunni fighters armed with AK-47 assault rifles exchanged fire with Alawites, a small offshoot of Shi’ite Islam that sides with the Hezbollah opposition.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, whose forces fought a bloody battle with Hezbollah over the weekend, is still under Hezbollah’s “mercy” and fears that he will be assassinated by Hezbollah, said retired Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, who has been in communication with sources in the region since the weekend.
Gen. Vallely added that intelligence from the region suggests that Iran has knowingly been behind Hezbollah’s surprise move to take control of the country and that lack of support from outside allies places the region in a serious predicament.
“Iran is getting what it wants and, basically, they will take over Lebanon through Hezbollah,” Gen. Vallely said. “The danger is more to Israel now because now they are surrounded by Iranian-controlled Lebanon, and also Syria.
“The Arab countries and the Arab League will do nothing. They will take no action, Europe will do nothing. So the Lebanese Christians and Druze will now be under Hezbollah. That’s the tragedy of it all.”
On Sunday, evidence that Mr. Jumblatt had lost most of his power was witnessed when he pleaded with Sheik Nasrallah to save the lives of his followers in the Shouf Mountains, where most of the fighting had taken place.
From his home in Beirut, Mr. Jumblatt, announced on television that “I address Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: If you have a personal issue with me, that’s fine. But we cannot allow attacks on the people of Al-Jabel. We must all work for a cease-fire with the army, and leave personal issues aside.”
According to another e-mail sent by sources in Lebanon to U.S. government sources, Hezbollah was able to take over Beirut because 50 percent of the Lebanese Army consists of Shi’ite soldiers with loyalty to Hezbollah.
“I don’t think Hezbollah does anything without being told by Iran,” said a U.S. military official, who declined to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity. “This is part of a coordinated effort by Iran to put the pressure on the U.S.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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