A pair’s deaths roil Lebanon’s sectarian anger

BEIRUT —  As Lebanon braced for possible civil unrest, hundreds of people marched here Friday behind the coffins of two Sunni Muslim youths killed this week.

The 12-year-old boy and 25-year-old man were kidnapped Monday in what is widely believed to be a vendetta stemming from the January killing of a Shiite Muslim student. Their disappearance near the Shiite-dominated southern suburbs raised fears of a worsening of sectarian relations, already fragile after fighting early this year.

The victims’ bodies were found Thursday, prompting the government to dispatch 60,000 security forces to the streets of the capital and beyond in an effort to calm tempers. Lebanese politicians begged their constituencies not to retaliate.

“This crime revealed the vulnerability of a country that is dangerously polarized,” said Oussama Safa, a political analyst who heads the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, a Beirut-based think tank.

Since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, the country has been locked in a political crisis that deepened with the fierce war last summer between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Late last year, the Shiite-led opposition began a long-term sit-in protest, demanding a bigger role in the government and paralyzing Beirut’s city center. The demonstrations culminated with two days of deadly fighting in January, once again reviving the specter of civil war.

On one side of the political divide is the Western-backed majority headed by Sunnis; on the other, the Hezbollah-led opposition. A key issue in the dispute is the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate the assassination of Hariri, a move opposed by Hezbollah.

On Friday, as wailing women showered rose petals and rice on the coffins of the two youths, Sunni mourners chanted threatening slogans aimed at Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

As the procession advanced through the Sunni-dominated Tariq Jedideh neighborhood, mourners called out, “The Sunni blood is boiling!” and “Nasrallah is the enemy of God!”

But addressing mourners at the funeral, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a normally fierce critic of Hezbollah, urged the crowds to “not politicize this incident [and] not to awaken strife.”

The two victims’ families are supporters of Jumblatt, a close ally of Saad Hariri, son of the slain former prime minister and the Sunni leader of the parliamentarian majority.

Observers believe Ziad Ghandour, 12, and his neighbor Ziad Qabalan, 25, were killed in retaliation for the death of Adnan Shamas, a 29-year-old Shiite shot during sectarian clashes in January.

All local TV channels interrupted their programming after the bodies were discovered, broadcasting nonstop pleas for peace from politicians. The killings rekindled fears of the type of tactics common during the nation’s 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990.

Watching the burial of the boy, Magida Youssef Baz, 40, had tears in her eyes.

Amid chants and slogans, the homemaker worried about her own children.

“How can I let my children leave our house without feeling extremely anxious?” she asked.

Times staff writer Louise Roug contributed to this report.