One Killed, 11 Wounded in Scuffle near Iranian Embassy
One person was killed on Sunday and at least eleven others were wounded in a scuffle between supporters of Hizbullah and protesters near the Iranian embassy in Beirut.
The Demonstrators were holding a sit-in near the embassy in the Bir Hassan area south of Beirut, to protest Hizbullah's involvement in the war raging in Syria.
According to LBCI, all the wounded belong to the Lebanese Option Party, which is led by the March 14 Shiite politician Ahmed Asaad.
The channel said that the number of protesters was around 40-50 people.
The state-run National News Agency identified the man who was killed as Hashem Salman
Later the army command issued a communique confirming that “a person opened fire at protesters, who arrived at Bir Hassan area to hold a sit-in near the Iranian Embassy."
According to the statement, the person swiftly died of his wounds.
The army command noted that the army swiftly intervened and dispersed protesters to restore calm in the area.
“The army is pursuing the person, who opened fire, to detain him and hand him over to the competent judicial authority,” the communique added.
An army spokesman told Agence France Presse that Hizbullah partisans attacked the demonstrators.
Although Lebanon has officially adopted a position of neutrality in Syria's war, its people are sharply divided with Hizbullah and its allies backing President Bashar Assad's regime and the March 14 alliance the rebellion.
Syrian regime forces backed by elite Hizbullah fighters on Wednesday managed to recapture the strategic town of Qusayr near Lebanon's border from rebel hands following a fierce assault.
And on Saturday the Eastern Bweida village, the last rebel bastion in the area, was seized by Syrian forces, bringing the entire Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon back under regime control.
Only 10 kilometers from Lebanon, Qusayr is strategic for the regime and Hizbullah because of its proximity to the border and because it lies on a route linking Damascus to the the regime's bastion on the Syrian coast.
For the rebels, it was an important conduit from Lebanon for men and weapons.
The army urged on Friday "citizens to express their political views on events in Lebanon and Syria by peaceful and democratic means and not to be driven by groups wanting to use violence as a means to achieve their ends".
The statement was the strongest from the Lebanese army since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011.
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