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Clashes Erupt in Lebanon Over Release of Online Video

Dale Gavlak

   AMMAN, JORDAN - An online video purportedly deemed offensive to Shi'ite
   Muslims has sparked unrest in Lebanon, which remains on edge amid
   anti-government protests that have been ongoing since mid-October.

   Late Monday, hundreds of angry supporters from Lebanon's two main
   Shi'ite-majority parties, Hezbollah and Amal, stepped up the ante,
   clashing with the security forces and anti-government protesters camped
   out in central Beirut after the video, shared online, showed a man
   insulting important Shi'ite figures. A link between the video and the
   attack on the protest camps was not determined.

   At least three cars were set ablaze, one reportedly after it was driven
   into the groups of men. Police were pelted with stones and fireworks
   and responded with tear gas and water cannon. Protests sparked by the
   video also broke out in the south and the Bekaa Valley. News reports
   say the undated video was made by an expatriate Lebanese Sunni from the
   majority Sunni city of Tripoli.

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