Gunfire rang out over central Beirut yesterday after the funeral of an assassinated intelligence chief ended in clashes, leaving the Lebanese capital on edge as it awaits further fallout from a crisis widely seen as linked to the turmoil in neighbouring Syria.
Thousands followed an opposition call to rally in Beirut’s Martyr’s Square to mourn Wissam al-Hassan, a top security official who recently helped bring about the arrest of one of the Syrian regime’s most important allies in Lebanon.
Many in the Lebanese opposition see the hand of Damascus behind the car bomb that killed the intelligence chief and seven others, which has heightened tensions in a country already divided between supporters and opponents of the Assad regime in Syria.