Rooftop snipers and rocket launchers in battle of Beirut

At least six people were reported dead and dozens wounded during hours of heavy gunfire in central Beirut yesterday when a protest against the investigation into last year’s port explosion turned into armed clashes.

An unidentified rooftop sniper opened fire on a crowd of hundreds of supporters of the militant group Hezbollah and its political allies gathered in front of the Palais de Justice, Beirut’s central court, shortly after 11am, local time.

Security forces and the Shia Muslim group’s supporters then returned fire with automatic AK47s, heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Tanks and armoured personnel carriers drove into the centre of the Lebanese capital, and explosions and intense gunfire continued for four hours.

The prime minister, Najib Mikati, said: ‘‘The army are proceeding to arrest those involved and bring them to justice.’’

The Lebanese army reported gunfire in affluent neighbourhoods as troops moved in to a former front line between Christian and Muslim factions during the country’s 15-year civil war.

Residents were ordered to evacuate and soldiers were ordered to ‘‘shoot any gunman in the street’’.

Hezbollah and Amal, another Shia Muslim party, blamed the Lebanese Forces, a Maronite Christian party, for opening fire on marchers.

Ziad Hawat, a Lebanese Forces MP, claimed in turn that Hezbollah had instigated the violence, and accused the militant group backed by Iran of ‘‘carrying out a coup against the state’’.

Casualties were said to have included both Christians and Muslims. Bassam Mawlawi, the interior minister, said that at least six people had been shot dead. They included a 24-year-old woman who was hit in the head by a stray bullet in her home, according to a doctor at the Sahel General Hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The Lebanese Red Cross estimated that 30 people had been wounded.

As casualties were carried away in bloodied sheets, most demonstrators fled the protest, which had been organised against Judge Tarek Bitar’s handling of the investigation into the explosion at Beirut’s port on August 4 last year.

The rally followed an intense political campaign calling for the removal of Bitar, the second judge tasked with looking into the explosion of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the port. More than 200 people were killed and 6500 injured in the blast, which destroyed entire districts of the city.

Several Shia political leaders allied to Hezbollah and Amal have been pursued for questioning by the judge as part of his inquiry.

The gun battle marks a serious escalation in tensions and could derail the country’s latest fragile government – only finalised last month after more than a year of deadlock – even before it begins tackling

Lebanon’s unprecedented economic crisis.

A cabinet meeting was cancelled yesterday after Hezbollah demanded urgent government action against Bitar, over the judge’s alleged bias. No one has been prosecuted in relation to the port explosion.

Hezbollah and Amal said in a statement that the attack was a deliberate attempt to drag the country into violence and called on their supporters to remain calm.

Haneen Chemaly, a Beirut resident in charge of a local charity that provides social services, accused Lebanon’s leaders of steering the country into civil war, saying it’s ‘‘the last card they have to use’’. ‘‘They have [driven] us into bankruptcy, devastation and now they are scaring us with the spectre of civil war,’’ she said.