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Political party offices in Lebanon set alight after crackdown on protests | |
(32 minutes later) | |
Parties of former PM and foreign minister targeted after violent clashes in Beirut | |
Attackers in northern Lebanon set fire to the offices of two main political parties on Sunday, the state-run National News Agency has said. | |
In the town of Kharibet al-Jindi, an office of the party of the former prime minister Saad Hariri was torched and its windows were broken. | |
In a separate attack in town of Jedidat al-Juma, assailants stormed an office of the largest party in parliament, affiliated with President Michel Aoun and headed by the foreign minister, Gebran Bassil. The party said the contents of the office had been smashed and burned. | |
Hours earlier in the capital, Beirut, security forces had carried out the most violent crackdown on protesters since nationwide demonstrations began two months ago. | |
The security forces fired rubber bullets, teargas and used water cannons throughout the night to disperse protesters in the city centre and around parliament. | |
The overnight confrontations left more than 130 people injured, according to the Red Cross and the Lebanese civil defence. | |
The interior minister, Raya Haffar al-Hassan, ordered an investigation into the clashes, which she said had injured both protesters and security forces. | |
She blamed what she called “infiltrators“ for instigating the violence and called on the demonstrators to be wary of those who sought to exploit their protests for political reasons. | |
Lebanon is facing one of its worst economic crises in decades, and the protesters accuse the political class that has been ruling for three decades of mismanagement and corruption. | |
The nationwide protests began on 17 October, and the government headed by Hariri resigned two weeks later. Political parties have since been bickering over the shape and form of the new cabinet. Protesters want a technocratic government that is not affiliated with established political parties. | |
Aoun is due to hold talks with different parliamentary blocs to name a new prime minister on Monday. After weeks of back and forth, Hariri has emerged as the likely candidate for the job. | |