Lebanese youth beaten by men sporting Syrian flags in Beirut

Lebanese youth beaten by men sporting Syrian flags in Beirut

BEIRUT, March 8 (AFP) - A 21-year-old youth was taken to hospital Tuesday after being beaten by club-wielding men carrying Syrian flags in the latest incident between anti- and pro-Syrian followers, police said.

Bashir Daibess, 21, was admitted with head and back injuries as well as a fractured elbow which will necessitate surgery after the incident in the eastern Christian suburb of Furn el-Shebbak, the injured man and doctors told AFP.

In another incident in nearby Ain al-Remmaneh, men in cars bearing Syrian flags drove through the area honking their horns and insulting youths standing along the streets, police said.

Youths from both sides beat each other with clubs and stones before the cars sporting Syrian flags drove away and Lebanese army forces deployed in force in the area, they said.

"It is not the first time that men carrying Syrian flags pass by the neighborhood to provoke the youngsters here, and actually they have been also driving by and firing shots in the air at night," a police officer said.

Since Saturday, when Syrian president Bashar al-Assad harshly criticised the Lebanese opposition for calling for a Syrian troop pullout from Lebanon, young men with Syrian flags have been driving around the streets of Beirut and other cities and firing into the air.

A teenager was injured on Sunday in a shooting incident near an anti-Syrian opposition rally in Beirut. The Lebanese army later arrested three suspects.

At Mount Lebanon Hospital, Daibess said "I was driving around Furn el-Shebbak neighborhood with four of my friends, when a man insulted us from another car carrying seven people."

The car was decorated with a Syrian flag and portraits Assad and his Lebanese counterpart, Damascus protege Emile Lahoud, he told AFP from his hospital bed.

"Then, they got out of the car and we did too. My friends managed to escape, but I was beaten by a baseball bat on the head, the back and the elbow," he said.

"These are provocations that have been taking place every evening in the last few days, and we had been expecting this to happen today after the demonstration of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah," said witness Tufic Moawad.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah which maintains offices near the areas of the incidents, led a massive demonstration earlier Tuesday in downtown Beirut to express solidarity with Syria.

"These incidents are very dangerous, especially that they are targeting the residents of Ain al-Remmaneh where the war started," said Moawad, standing among dozens of young men vowing to remain on the streets to "protect our neighborhood."

The 15-year Lebanese civil war was sparked by an incident in the neighborhood when Christian militiamen fired on Palestinian civilian bus returning from a rally on April 13, 1975.