Awful news from Beirut.
The battles spread within moments of a rare news conference by the leader of the Shiite Hezbollah movement, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who effectively endorsed the use of violence by his supporters against fellow Lebanese. This is a first in the history of the group, which had always declared that it is armed only to defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression.
They've already seized control of much of West Beirut. A couple of things to keep an eye on for how they affect the response to this - Hezbollah's leader Nasrallah has become extremely popular in many areas of the Arab world since the 2006 war, so some regional governments may incur domestic costs by taking him on, and Israel may very soon (very soon) be going through a transition in its leadership.
Posted by armand at May 9, 2008 02:26 PM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs