Kheir Inspects Damages in Downtown Beirut

Prime Minister Hassan Diab has commissioned Head of the High Relief Committee Gen. Mohammed Kheir with conducting a field survey to assess the damages to commercial, public and private properties, the press office of PM Hassan Diab said on Saturday.

Diab had contacted the chiefs of the military and security services to take appropriate measures aiming at stopping suspicious attacks on public and private properties in downtown Beirut, it said.

Diab stressed on the fact that Friday riots in Beirut are “totally rejected by all standards,” highlighting the need for all necessary measures to be taken in order to protect people and institutions’ properties, and repress all sabotage operations.

On Friday, protesters took the streets but tension petered out after midnight mainly in Beirut’s downtown area where shop fronts were defaced and burnt.

In the northern city of Tripoli, hundreds of demonstrators shouting “revolution, revolution" had thrown stones and Molotov cocktails toward the soldiers and damaged the facades of several banks and shops. Soldiers responded with tear gas.

Protesters had initially taken to the streets after sundown on Thursday, railing against the spiralling cost of living and the government's apparent impotence in the face of the worst economic turmoil since the 1975-1990 civil war.