BEIRUT (Reuters) – Gunmen clash in deadly street battles, protesters block roads with burning tires and opposition politicians demand the prime minister’s downfall, denouncing the army as an agent of a foreign power.

Fragile Lebanon’s sectarian tensions, which festered for two decades since the end of its ruinous civil war, have been re-ignited by the turmoil in powerful neighbor Syria and threaten to plunge the country into a sustained period of unrest.

In the northern city of Tripoli, where Sunni Muslims strongly support the 14-month uprising against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, nine people were killed in clashes last week triggered by the arrest of an anti-Assad activist.

The violence spread to the capital on Monday when Sunni gunmen fought street battles in a Beirut neighborhood following the killing of a Sunni cleric, also opposed to Assad, by Lebanese soldiers at an army checkpoint in the northern Akkar province.

On Tuesday, angry Shi’ites blocked roads in southern Beirut in protest against the abduction in northern Syria of a dozen Lebanese Shi’ites by rebels from the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim insurgency against Assad.

“We are entering a phase of protracted instability in Lebanon. There is no direct way in which these events will be fully contained,” said Eurasia Group analyst Ayham Kamel.

The Syrian uprising forced Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati into a near-impossible balancing act between diehard supporters and opponents of Assad in a country which was long dominated by Syrian military power.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least two people were killed in heavy fighting between rival Sunni Muslim gunmen in Beirut on Monday, medical and security sources said, in the latest violence fuelled by tensions over the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The clashes followed the killing of an anti-Assad Sunni cleric and his colleague at an army checkpoint in north Lebanon on Sunday, triggering angry protests in Sunni districts of northern cities and the capital.

Demonstrators blocked roads and burned tires in the northern province of Akkar where Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahid, a prominent critic of Assad, and Muhammed Miraib were shot. Security sources said soldiers opened fire as their car sped through a checkpoint without stopping.

Protests over the shooting spread on Sunday night to Beirut where gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns clashed in the mainly Sunni Muslim district of Tariq al-Jadideh – some of the fiercest battles since sectarian street battles four years ago brought Lebanon back to the brink of civil war.

A Reuters cameraman said shooting could be heard from 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) until nearly 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Monday.

“This is a real war,” resident Mohammad Saab said on Monday after the shooting died down. “We were sitting at home with our children, then we heard gunfire, we did not know who was shooting at whom.”

Security sources said the fighting pitted gunmen from the Future Movement, loyal to anti-Syrian former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, against the pro-Syrian Arab Movement Party headed by Shaker Barjawi.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian forces foiled an attempted suicide car bombing with 1,200 kg (2,640 pounds) of explosives in the northern city of Aleppo on Friday, state television said, a day after two bombs in the capital Damascus killed at least 55 people.

The would-be bomber was killed in the al Shaar district of Syria’s largest city which, like Damascus, has seen increasing street protests against President Bashar al-Assad and rising levels of bloodshed after months of relative calm.

Twin bombings in southern Damascus killed 55 people and wounded more than 300 on Thursday, the deadliest attacks since the uprising against Assad erupted 14 months ago, inspired by revolts against autocratic rulers elsewhere in the Arab world.

The blasts further undermined a tattered ceasefire agreement repeatedly violated by the army and rebels since it was brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan four weeks ago. The deal has been overseen by nearly 150 unarmed U.N. observers in Syria.

Syria said the attacks showed that it faced foreign-backed terrorism – an argument it made from the start of peaceful protests against Assad in March last year – while the opposition blamed authorities for the blasts.

Syria’s Ikhbariya television showed U.N. monitors inspecting a white mini-van in Aleppo on Friday which an army officer told them had contained enough explosive to kill 500 people. The bloodied body of the van driver lay crumpled in the front seat, behind a windscreen riddled with bullet holes.

The officer told the U.N. observers the driver, who he said was not Syrian, was shot before he could detonate the bombs.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Norwegian general charged with overseeing a shaky U.N.-brokered truce in Syria arrived in Damascus on Sunday, boosting a monitor mission that activists say has helped ease the violence in the city of Homs, hotbed of a 13-month uprising.

In the capital, militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Central Bank building, causing slight damage, and wounded four police when they attacked their patrol, state television reported. Activists in Damascus reported explosions and gunfire.

General Robert Mood acknowledged the huge task awaiting the planned 300-strong unarmed mission, which now has 30 people on the ground, but said he was confident it could make headway.

“We will be only 300, but we can make a difference,” Mood told reporters on his arrival in the Syrian capital.

“Thirty unarmed observers, 300 unarmed observers, even 1,000 unarmed observers cannot solve all the problems,” he said. “I call on everyone to help us and cooperate with us in this very challenging task ahead.”

The United Nations says President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have killed 9,000 people during the revolt, the latest in a string of uprisings in the Arab world against autocratic rule.

Damascus says 2,600 of its personnel have died at the hands of anti-Assad militiamen, and has accused the United Nations of turning a blind eye to “terrorist acts” against security forces.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Norwegian general charged with overseeing a shaky U.N.-brokered truce in Syria arrived in Damascus on Sunday, boosting a monitor mission that activists say has already helped ease the violence in the city of Homs, hotbed of a 13-month uprising.

General Robert Mood acknowledged the huge task awaiting the planned 300-strong unarmed mission, which now has 30 people on the ground, but said he was confident it could make headway.

“We will be only 300 but we can make a difference,” Mood told reporters on his arrival in the Syrian capital. His comments were passed on to Reuters in neighboring Beirut.

“Thirty unarmed observers, 300 unarmed observers, even 1,000 unarmed observers cannot solve all the problems,” he said. “I call on everyone to help us and cooperate with us in this very challenging task ahead.”

The United Nations says President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have killed 9,000 people during the revolt, the latest in a string of uprisings in the Arab world against autocratic rule.

Damascus says 2,600 of its personnel have died at the hands of anti-Assad militiamen, and has accused the United Nations of turning a blind eye to “terrorist acts” against security forces.

Syria’s SANA official news agency said U.N. observers on Sunday toured the Khalidiya district of Homs, which endured weeks of shelling by government forces before the April 12 ceasefire.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese authorities seized a large consignment of Libyan weapons including rocket-propelled grenades and heavy caliber ammunition from a ship intercepted in the Mediterranean, the army said on Saturday.

It did not say where the vessel was heading but the ship’s owner told Reuters it was due to unload in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli.

The mainly Sunni Muslim city has seen regular protests in support of the 13-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria, and any arms shipped there could have been smuggled across the border to anti-Assad rebels.

The army said in a statement the weapons were found in three containers carried by the Sierra Leone-flagged Letfallah II, which was impounded along with its 11-man crew and taken to a navy port in Beirut.

Pictures released by the army showed dozens of crates inside the containers, some of them filled with belts of heavy ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades.

Labeling on one box said it contained fragmentation explosives, and several identified them as coming from Libya.

One was marked “Tripoli/Benghazi SPLAJ”, referring to LIbya’s formal name during the 42-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi – the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army killed more than 20 people in Hama on Monday, activists said, shattering a week of relative quiet in the central city visited a day earlier by U.N. monitors laying the ground for a wider mission to oversee a shaky 11-day ceasefire.

A small group of unarmed observers has been in Syria for a week, tracking the truce between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opponents inspired by ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings in North Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The deal has curbed some of the violence, but the latest killings in Hama’s Arbaeen district have laid bare the difficulty of bringing to a complete halt 13 months of fighting in which more than 9,000 people have died.

The U.N. Security Council has approved an expansion of the monitoring mission to 300 observers, although Assad’s opponents say such numbers are far too small to keep a track on events in a nation of 23 million.

The U.N. political affairs chief said on Monday that the fighting in Syria was continuing despite announcements from the government that it will comply with the truce and has withdrawn troops and heavy weapons from population centers.

“The cessation of armed violence remains incomplete,” Lynn Pascoe, U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, told the Security Council during a debate on the Middle East.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities, who say they are committed to international mediator Kofi Annan’s April 12 ceasefire agreement, but reserve the right to respond to what they say are continued attacks by “terrorist groups”.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian soldiers stormed a town east of Damascus on Sunday and rebels bombed a military convoy in the north of the country as international mediator Kofi Annan urged both sides to work with an expanded team of U.N. ceasefire monitors.

The group of unarmed military monitors has been operating in Syria for a week, overseeing a 10-day-old truce agreement that has curbed some of the violence but failed to bring a complete halt to 13 months of bloodshed.

The U.N. Security Council agreed on Saturday to expand the mission to a 300-strong observer team, part of Annan’s plan to halt the killing and launch a political dialogue between President Bashar al-Assad and opponents seeking his downfall.

Annan said the council’s decision was a “pivotal moment in the stabilization of the country” after more than a year of turmoil in which more than 9,000 people have been killed.

The former U.N. secretary-general called on both Syrian government forces and opposition fighters to put down their weapons and consolidate the ceasefire accord.

“The government in particular must desist from the use of heavy weapons and, as it has committed, withdraw such weapons and armed units from population centers,” Annan said.

Assad’s opponents say his forces have continued shelling opposition strongholds in violation of the truce, while authorities say “terrorist armed groups” have kept up a campaign of bombings against government targets.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Barely had the first U.N. ceasefire monitors set foot on Syrian soil this week than Bashar al-Assad’s enemies were discussing the likelihood of the mission failing and warning of punitive measures against the Syrian president.

The emir of Qatar gave Syria’s flawed truce a three percent chance of holding while U.S. officials, pointing to continued army shelling of rebel strongholds, questioned whether there was any point adding to the handful of international monitors in place.

France said it put no faith in the ceasefire because Assad was not sincere and even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria had yet to show it is committed to peace.

But behind doubts and scepticism over the partial ceasefire and the protracted wrangling to establish a credible monitoring mission, Assad’s critics know they have few other levers to end the violence in Syria.

Still reluctant to consider military force and facing Russian and Chinese opposition to U.N. sanctions on Damascus, they have little diplomatic muscle to back up their noisy rhetoric against the Syrian leader.

The truce, brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan, came into effect last week. Activists say Syria has violated it by shelling Homs and other opposition strongholds and failing to withdraw heavy weapons from cities.

The government says rebels have carried out at least three major bombings and killed dozens of people.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Barely had the first U.N. ceasefire monitors set foot on Syrian soil this week than Bashar al-Assad’s enemies were discussing the likelihood of the mission failing and warning of punitive measures against the Syrian president.

The emir of Qatar gave Syria’s flawed truce a three percent chance of holding while U.S. officials, pointing to continued army shelling of rebel strongholds, questioned whether there was any point adding to the handful of international monitors in place.

France said it put no faith in the ceasefire because Assad was not sincere and even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria had yet to show it is committed to peace.

But behind doubts and scepticism over the partial ceasefire and the protracted wrangling to establish a credible monitoring mission, Assad’s critics know they have few other levers to end the violence in Syria.

Still reluctant to consider military force and facing Russian and Chinese opposition to U.N. sanctions on Damascus, they have little diplomatic muscle to back up their noisy rhetoric against the Syrian leader.

The truce, brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan, came into effect last week. Activists say Syria has violated it by shelling Homs and other opposition strongholds and failing to withdraw heavy weapons from cities.

The government says rebels have carried out at least three major bombings and killed dozens of people.