BEIRUT - Lebanon’s third-largest city was turned into a battle zone Monday as the military fought with heavily armed followers of an extremist Sunni cleric holed up in a mosque in a southern port city.
Residents of Sidon fled as machine-gun fire and grenade explosions shook the coastal area in one of the deadliest rounds of violence, seen as a test of the state’s ability to contain the furies unleashed by neighboring Syria’s civil war.
At least 16 soldiers were killed in two days of clashes with armed followers of Ahmad al-Assir, a maverick sheikh whose rapid rise among the ranks of some Sunni Muslims is a symptom of the deep frustration among many who resent the Hezbollah-led Shiite ascendancy to power in Lebanon.
The fighting in Sidon is the bloodiest involving the army since the military fought a three-month battle in 2007 against the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group inside the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared in northern Lebanon. The Lebanese army crushed the group, but the clashes left over 170 soldiers dead.
The scenes of soldiers aiming at gunmen holed up in residential buildings in Sidon on Monday and armored personnel vehicles deployed on its streets evoked memories of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.
The civil war in Syria has for the past year been bleeding into Lebanon, along similar sectarian lines of Sunni and Shiite camps. Overstretched and outgunned by militias, the military has struggled to put out fires on multiple fronts in the eastern Bekaa valley and the northern city of Tripoli as armed factions fought pitched street battles that often lasted several days.
The army, however, moved against al-Assir on Monday after his followers - purportedly unprovoked - opened fire on an army checkpoint.
Al-Assir, a 45-year-old skinny cleric with a long beard who supports the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, is an unlikely figure to challenge the army.
Few had heard of him until last year, when he began agitating for Hezbollah to disarm, taking advantage of the deep frustration among Lebanon’s Sunnis and a political void on the Sunni street after the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni leader.
Many in the Western-backed coalition known as March 14, led by Hariri’s son, Saad, quietly gave al-Assir backing as he launched his tirades against Hezbollah, and several Sunni politicians attacked the army, accusing it of bias in favor of Hezbollah.
Last month, after Hezbollah openly joined the fighting in Syria alongside Assad’s forces in the border town of Qusair, al-Assir called Sunnis in Lebanon to join the fight in Syria and accused the army of inaction in the face of Hezbollah’s growing involvement in Syria.
The two days of fighting have transformed Sidon, a Mediterranean city some 25 miles south of Beirut, leaving 50 wounded on Monday, the National News Agency said. At least two military officers were among those killed. Security officials said more than 20 of al-Assir’s supporters were killed in the fighting, but did not provide an exact figure.
The clashes broke out Sunday in the city, which had been largely spared the violence plaguing border areas, after troops arrested an al-Assir follower. The army says supporters of the cleric openedfire without provocation on an army checkpoint.
Hezbollah appeared to be staying largely out of the ongoing clashes, though a few of its supporters in the city were briefly drawn into the fight Sunday, firing on al-Assir’s supporters. At least one was killed, according to his relatives in the city who spoke anonymously out of concerns for their security.
Last week, al-Assir supporters fought with pro-Hezbollah gunmen, leaving two killed.
Fighting also broke out in parts of Ein el-Hilweh, a teeming Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon, where al-Assir has supporters. Islamist factions inside the camp lobbed mortars at military checkpoints around the camp.
Tension also spread to the north in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city. Masked gunmen roamed the city center, firing in the air and forcing shops and businesses to shut down in solidarity with al-Assir. Dozens of gunmen also set fire to tires, blocking roads. The city’s main streets were emptying out. There was no unusual military or security deployment.
Walid al-Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, blamed the violence in Lebanon on the international decision to arm rebels, saying that it will only serve to prolong the fighting in Syria and will impact neighboring Lebanon.
“What is going in Sidon is very dangerous, very dangerous,” he told reporters in Damascus. “We warned since the start that the impact of what happens in Syria on neighboring countries will be grave.”
The foreign minister said his regime was willing to take part in a peace conference but would go to Geneva not to hand over power to the other side but rather to establish “a real partnership” and a national-unity government that includes representatives of all Syrian society.
Information for this article was contributed by Sarah El Deeb and Albert Aji of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 06/25/2013