Hezbollah Forces Gaining Ground In Beirut Fighting

May 9, 2008 10:16 a.m. EST

Beirut, Lebanon (AHN) - After three days of gun battles in Beirut, Lebanon's urban streets, Hezbollah took control of large portions of the city, and forced a Sunni Muslim television station off the air, all of which was a blow to the U.S-backed government.

Hezbollah is a Shiite political movement with a powerful guerrilla army that beat back the Israeli military offensive into Lebanon in July 2006.

Its Shia Muslim forces have seized control of Sunni Muslim neighborhoods in western Beirut. That move has left Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim leader Saad Hariri and Druse sect pro-Western leadership surrounded in their compounds, according to reports. It was Harari's television station that Hezbollah shut down.

As a result, some government MPs have convened an emergency meeting outside the capital, with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora unable to leave his downtown Beirut office.

The fighting has put the military on the brink of a split of loyalties, Britain's Telegraph reported Friday.

According to reports, the fighting between pro-government forces and fighters loyal to Hezbollah resulted in 11 people killed and 30 injured.

Fighting erupted after the government declared Hezbollah's military telecommunications system illegal, an act that Hezbollah officials called a declaration of war. The fighting has reportedly been the most intense since the 1975-90 civil war.

Observers worry that the fighting and tensions between Shia and Sunni Muslims in Lebanon could ignite tensions between the two factions elsewhere in the Middle East, the AP reports.