Hezbollah And Ahbash Clash In Beirut. Several Killed.

But don’t worry, apparently, they kissed and made up:

officials insisted that Tuesday’s clash was not the sectarian strife that has bedeviled Lebanon for decades. A joint statement issued later by the two groups said that the episode had stemmed from a “personal dispute and has no political or sectarian background,” and that each side agreed to immediately end their differences and all armed street presences.

Yes, a “personal dispute” results in the firing of no less than 24 Rocket Propelled Grenades and the deployment of a large section of the Lebanese Army. Call me skeptical.

A few notes:

• The clashes happened at the same Time Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was lecturing the Lebanese people on spies and the importance of a death penalty. For better or worse, the altercation stole his media thunder
• Some media reports implied incorrectly that the Sunni faction fighting Hezbollah is somehow allied to P.M.Hariri. In fact the Ahbash are an extremist heterodox Sunni group that has historically been hostile to Hariri’s movement
• This was much more than an individual incident, considering the timing and the scale of the fighting. Some have speculated about a Syrian involvement in a bid to “reign in” Hezbollah, but this can’t be substantiated