Mubarak: Lebanon protests could turn it into 'battlefield'

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Saturday he feared continued street demonstrations, especially if they became sectarian, could turn Lebanon into a battlefield.

Hundreds of supporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah-led opposition camped out in central Beirut on Saturday on the second day of protests to demand the resignation of the U.S.-backed government.

"Wisdom is required in dealing with internal differences," Mubarak told journalists in Sharm el-Sheikh, where he was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"What I fear is that if the demonstrations continue, and take on a sectarian form, supporters of these sects from outside Lebanon will join in and no one will be able to control it, especially if it continues for a long time," he said.

"The result will be a transformation of Lebanon into a battlefield that subjects it to danger," he added.

Protesters pitched tents Saturday near central Beirut's Martyrs' Square and on streets leading to the government's headquarters, where hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters rallied on Friday to demand the government quit.

Hezbollah supporters set up water tanks and portable latrines and distributed sandwiches, tea and coffee to those camped out.

Young men sprawled lazily on mats in and outside their white tents under the bright, warm sun. Some read newspapers, others smoked waterpipes. Dozens of white-capped Hezbollah workers swept the streets, littered with left-over food and drink from the night before.

"Yesterday's demonstration was just the beginning. There are a lot of other surprises on the way," said Ali Ammar, an 18-year-old who had just woken up. "This government lost the trust of the people a long time ago, and we will not stop until it goes," the information technology student added.

Outside a nearby tent, men were performing their prayers on the pavement.

"If Siniora had one ounce of feeling, he would resign," said Aya Mughniyeh, a 20-year-old Hezbollah supporter dressed in black from head to toe.

A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the sit-in will continue until its goals are achieved.

"No matter how long they stay in the street ... this will not bring down the government of Fouad Siniora," Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri, who backs Siniora, told Al Hurra television late on Friday.

On Friday, Hundreds of thousands of protesters from Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies descended on downtown Beirut in a peaceful but noisy protest.

The protesters created a sea of Lebanese flags that blanketed the downtown and spilled onto the surrounding streets. Many chanted slogans demanding Siniora's resignation amid the deafening sound of Hezbollah's revolutionary and nationalist songs, but no clashes were immediately reported.

Lebanon's Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun told the rally in Beirut that Siniora and his cabinet have to resign.

"I call on the prime minister and his ministers to quit," Aoun said to the cheers of protesters.

"I wish that the prime minister and his ministers were among us today, not hiding behind barbed wire and army armored carriers. He who has his people behind him does not need barbed wire," Aoun told the crowd.

The prime minister went about his schedule, in what appeared to be a tactic to ignore the throngs who quickly began filling the streets and squares before the demonstration was set to begin later Friday afternoon. As heavy traffic was reported on highways leading to downtown, pro-government factions continued to urge supporters for calm.

Opposition groups led by the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah have mobilized their bases for the afternoon protest and were making arrangements to bus supporters from all corners of Lebanon to downtown Beirut for the massive show of popular support.

Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem said the protests would not end until Siniora's government fell.

"This government will not take Lebanon to the abyss," he told Hezbollah's al-Manar television. "We have several steps if this government does not respond, but I tell them you will not be able to rule Lebanon with an American administration."

The guerrilla group hopes the mass demonstration, which police estimated at 800,000 but Hezbollah claimed was larger, will generate enough popular pressure to further paralyze Siniora's government, forcing it to step down.

In New York, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton labeled the demonstrations as "part of the Iran-Syria inspired coup d'etat."

"We obviously hope the demonstrations will be peaceful. People have a right to express their political opinions, but in terms of this being part of the Iran-Syria inspired coup d'etat against the government of Lebanon we're obviously quite concerned about it," Bolton said.

Heavily armed soldiers and police closed all roads leading to the sprawling government complex in downtown Beirut, feverishly unfurling barbed wire and placing barricades to prevent any protests from spilling over into the stone-walled, brick-roofed historic building during what some newspapers billed as the "great showdown" between the government and the opposition.

Although there have been assurances by organizers of a peaceful demonstration, the stringent security measures came amid fears that the protests may turn into street clashes between the two sides or that Hezbollah supporters could try to storm Siniora's government headquarters.

A senior opposition source said supporters who had imposed a blockade on the government offices from where Siniora and most of his ministers were monitoring the protest, later eased it and opened a road to the complex after contacts between opposition leaders and Arab diplomats.

"The government received our message," he said. Several thousand opposition supporters set up tents near the offices and planned to spend the night there as part of the open-ended sit-in.

Launching a long-threatened campaign to force Lebanon's U.S.-backed government from office, Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies on Thursday called for the mass demonstrations Friday followed by a wave of open-ended protests.

But a defiant Siniora vowed his government would not fall, warning in a nationally-televised speech Thursday night that "Lebanon's independence is threatened and its democratic system is in danger."

The call for protests threatens to turn a political power struggle between pro- and anti-Syrian factions into a violent showdown in sharply divided Lebanon.

Ironically, Siniora asked Lebanese to show support by raising the Lebanese flag on their windows and balconies. Hezbollah's leader has called on protesters to also carry the same banner, the national red and white flag with the historic cedar tree in its middle.

But both camps seemed wide apart on what kind of Lebanon they want.

Government supporters accuse Syria of being behind the Hezbollah campaign, trying to regain its lost influence in its smaller neighbor. Hezbollah and its allies, in turn, say the country has fallen under U.S. domination and that they have lost their rightful portion of power.

Hezbollah had threatened to call mass demonstrations unless it and its allies obtain a veto-wielding share of the cabinet - a demand that Siniora and the anti-Syrian parties have rejected. The aim of the protests is to generate enough popular pressure to further paralyze the government, forcing it to step down.

Hezbollah has proven in past rallies that it can draw hundreds of thousands of its Shi'ite supporters into the streets.

The United States has made Lebanon a key front in its attempts to rein in Syria and its ally, regional powerhouse Iran. U.S. President George W. Bush warned earlier this week that the two countries were trying to destabilize Lebanon.

Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, had called for the protests to be peaceful. From the other camp, the head of the anti-Syrian bloc in parliament, Saad Hariri, said his supporters should not hold counter-demonstrations.

"Tomorrow is a day when we will show our resolve," Hariri told The Associated Press on Thursday. Still, he vowed to be "strong with the government... We will not accept to be part of an axis of Syria and Iran."

In announcing the protests, Nasrallah said that Siniora's government "has proven it is incompetent and has failed to fulfill its promises and achieve anything significant."

Tensions are high in Lebanon after a string of assassinations of anti-Syrian figures over the past two years, including a prominent Christian government minister gunned down last week and Hariri's father, former prime minister Rafik Hairi, who was killed in a February 2005 bomb blast.

The political fight has paralyzed the government, with anti-Syrians dominating the parliament and the Siniora cabinet pitted against the pro-Syrian president and parliament speaker.

The battle is a fallout from the summer war between Hezbollah and Israel that ravaged parts of Lebanon. The militant force's resistance against Israeli troops sent its support among Shiites skyrocketing, emboldening it to grab more political power. Hezbollah also feels Siniora did not do enough to support it during the fight.

Pro-government groups, in turn, resent Hezbollah for sparking the fight by snatching two Israeli soldiers, dragging Lebanon into a conflict with the Israel Defense Forces.

	Lebanese soldiers sitting on their armored personnel carrier in front of the Government Palace in Beirut on Friday, ahead of a Hezbollah rally. (AP)