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Clashes Continue on Second Day in South Lebanon City Civilians Flee And Soldiers Die in Clashes In Lebanon
(about 7 hours later)
SIDON, Lebanon — Fierce clashes continued for a second day on Monday between the army and gunmen loyal to a radical Sunni cleric in this southern Lebanese city, in an outburst of civil violence that reflected how deeply the war in neighboring Syria has undermined security in Lebanon. SIDON, Lebanon — Tanks careened through this seaside city, gunfire crackled along near-deserted streets and thick smoke rose from the hilltop neighborhood where followers of a radical Sunni cleric clashed for a second day on Monday with the Lebanese Army, killing at least 12 soldiers. The deaths were the army’s worst losses since the conflict in neighboring Syria began fueling sporadic skirmishes in Lebanon two years ago.
At least 15 soldiers have died in the clashes, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency. Reports varied on the death toll among followers of the cleric, Sheik Ahmad al-Assir, who was said to be hiding in his mosque with hundreds of his followers on Monday. During pauses in the battle, families sped away in packed cars, waving white flags improvised from ripped sheets; one even used a bunch of tissues. Taken by surprise, some residents spent the night pinned down in supermarkets, in their offices, in a KFC chicken franchise.
The news agency said at least two of his followers had been killed, and other local news outlets said as many as 30 had died. In the downtown of the city on Monday afternoon, the sound of heavy weapons had ebbed, but intermittent gunfire could still be heard. A Lebanese officer said that the army had surrounded and entered Mr. Assir’s mosque, in the city’s Abra district. Though the fighting seemed to have eased by early evening, shaken residents said they feared the clashes — which shut down a religiously mixed city of 200,000, left windows shattered in gleaming downtown malls and pitted the army against a provocative cleric who has played on sectarian tensions — revealed that the country was drifting rudderless toward deepening conflict.
On Twitter on Monday, the cleric implored supporters to “save your people, who are being massacred.” Lebanon’s mainstream political leaders, residents said, appeared powerless or unwilling to rein in the cleric or address his followers’ concerns, leading to a clash they called more dangerous and destabilizing than the perennial battles between supporters and opponents of the Syrian government in the northern city of Tripoli, which have largely been confined to two neighborhoods. In this case, the conflict was rooted in a Lebanese power struggle that resonates throughout the country, a troubling development for a nation that lived through 15 years of sectarian civil war.
The fighting represented some of the worst violence in Lebanon since the Syrian uprising began more than two years ago, fueling fears of the Syrian civil war’s contagion. More worryingly for many people here, the scenes in Sidon — of Lebanese battling each other in the streets — recalled 1975, and the start of Lebanon's own 15-year civil war. In the emergency room of Hamoud Hospital, which received more than 40 wounded soldiers and 10 injured civilians, several stricken-looking surgeons said the fighting felt like the early skirmishes of the civil war in 1975. Asked whether it could be contained, they cast their gaze downward.
Mr. Assir is widely seen as a provocateur who has earned notoriety through a series of stunts in the news media, as well as for his public calls for the disarming of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has been fighting in Syria on the side of the government of President Bashar al-Assad. “We hope,” one said, as the wail of a woman who had lost her son in the fighting echoed through the corridor.
While Mr. Assir’s following was seen as marginal in Lebanon, some Sunnis, sympathetic to Syria’s rebel movement and frustrated with the lack of leadership from the mainstream Sunni Future movement, say Mr. Assir has provided an outlet for anger over Hezbollah’s role in Syria. The army, in a statement, compared the clashes to violence in Sidon that helped start the civil war, accusing members of Sheik Ahmed al-Assir’s militia of starting it on Sunday by killing soldiers at a checkpoint “in cold blood.” Each side accused the other of provoking the initial clash. The army recently set checkpoints near Mr. Assir’s mosque, after clashes erupted between his militia and Hezbollah supporters.
The feuds between Sunni hard-liners like Mr. Assir and Hezbollah has unsettled Lebanon, which shares Syria’s easily inflamed and complex network of political and sectarian ties. Many Sunnis described themselves as torn — between horror that followers of Mr. Assir had attacked the army, one of Lebanon’s few broadly respected national institutions, and the sense that he gives voice to their feelings of resentment over the dominance of the Shiite Muslim organization Hezbollah. Sunni anger has been magnified by Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria against an uprising that many Lebanese Sunnis support.
Last week, Mr. Assir’s followers fought with Hezbollah militiamen in Sidon, a largely Sunni city on the coast. The clashes on Sunday started after Mr. Assir’s gunmen carried out what the army said was a “coldblooded” attack on an army position, “in order to plunge Lebanon into another cycle of violence." Munir Ghazzoui, a Lebanese-Canadian, huddling with his family inside their apartment without electricity or water as the fighting caused a blackout, said that whoever had killed the soldiers “should be punished,” and condemned a call Mr. Assir issued for Sunni soldiers to defect from the army.
In a statement, the military promised a fierce response, saying it would “beat with an iron first whoever sheds the blood of the army.” But he and his family, who are Sunni, said that they had been sympathetic to Mr. Assir, and especially to his condemnations of Hezbollah’s alliance with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Ghazzoui’s daughter, Nawal, said the sheik’s fiery sermons “express what every Sunni house is feeling.”
Despite the rising tensions, the ferocity of the clashes and the high death toll stunned residents in Sidon, where many people expressed sympathy with the army. Families streamed out of the city, holding white flags from their cars to ward off snipers who were said to be positioned in buildings.
Munir Ghazzoui, a Lebanese-Canadian who had been stuck with his family inside his apartment without electricity or water, said that whoever had killed the soldiers “should be punished.”
Members of Mr. Ghazzoui’s family, who are Sunni, said that they had been sympathetic to Mr. Assir, and especially to his condemnations of Hezbollah’s alliance with Mr. Assad. Mr. Ghazzoui’s daughter, Nawal, said the sheik’s fiery sermons “express what every Sunni house is feeling.”
But, she added, “We are against using arms, by anyone.”But, she added, “We are against using arms, by anyone.”
Another resident, Inaya Haydar, said that she started hearing heavy gunfire around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, and that it continued into the early morning hours. Ms. Haydar, a Lebanese Shiite who is a supporter of Hezbollah, said that Mr. Assir should be arrested, even if it meant heavy fighting. “Let it take as much as it needs,” she said as she watched from her window as wounded people were taken to a nearby hospital. By day’s end, the clashes had ended in confusion. Arrest warrants were issued for Mr. Assir and scores of his followers. The army entered the mosque and said it discovered large stockpiles of weapons, but Mr. Assir was nowhere to be found. There were even reports that he had fled to Syria.
The cleric, she said, had shown his hypocrisy by calling on Hezbollah to disarm, a perennial issue in Lebanese politics. “What is he doing now?” she said. “He is armed too, and against the Lebanese Army.” There were conflicting reports, too, about whether Hezbollah, which has close ties with elements of the army, aided soldiers in the fight. Hezbollah’s news media described the army as acting alone. Some residents said they had seen people they knew to be Hezbollah fighters firing weapons, or moving through neighborhoods with the army, and others reported shelling from an area where Hezbollah has positions.
“They shouldn’t leave him free,” she added. “He is very dangerous.” The wiry, bespectacled Mr. Assir has widely been seen as a fringe provocateur. Largely unknown before the Syrian war, he rose to prominence with media gimmicks like taking busloads of followers to frolic on a snowy ski slope, discomfiting Christian residents or posing with a machine gun in Syria.
The death toll seemed likely to rise as fighting continued throughout the afternoon. Smoke from several large explosions — possibly mortar shells — could be seen near the mosque on Monday afternoon, as more families fled the area. Witnesses near the mosque said that ambulances shuttled more than 100 wounded people to hospitals, among them both army soldiers and civilians. The mainstream Sunni party, the Future Movement, led by the powerful Sidon-based family of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister assassinated in 2005, has often condemned the cleric’s sectarian rhetoric and use of arms, though Hezbollah supporters accuse the party of secretly backing him.

 Barnard from Sidon and Ben Hubbard from Cairo; Hania Mourtada contributed from Beirut, and Hwaida Saad from Sidon. 

But in Sidon on Monday, even Future supporters said they did not want to see him defeated, suggesting his support may run deeper. One Sunni man said he had been tempted many times to join his militia because it made him feel protected “as a Sunni.”
A few blocks away, a Shiite resident and Hezbollah supporter, Inaya Haydar, said Mr. Assir should be arrested, even if it meant heavy fighting.
“Let it take as much as it needs,” Ms. Haydar, a nurse, said after staying up all night to the sounds of gunfire, rocket-propelled grenades and shells and watching from her window as wounded people pour into Hamoud Hospital.
The cleric, she said, had shown his hypocrisy by calling on Hezbollah to disarm its militia, a perennial issue in Lebanese politics. “What is he doing now?” she said. “He is armed too, and against the Lebanese Army.”
Mohamed al-Bizri, a member of the municipal council and a dentist who has cared for Mr. Assir’s wife, said many respectable families supported the cleric, who had played positive roles, such as working against drug abuse.
But politically, he said, Mr. Assir was “a naïve reactionary” who was promoting “segregation” between sects, an idea that he said had no place in a city with a history of coexistence and commerce. Attacking the army, he said, had set back the effort to balance Sunni and Shiite power, but the angst Mr. Assir harnessed remains.
“In one week or one year,” he said, “there will be a new Assir.”

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Sidon, and Kareem Fahim and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon.