Clashes break out in Beirut after slain official's funeral

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Gunmen exchanged fire in southern districts of Beirut overnight after the state funeral of an assassinated Lebanese intelligence chief ended in violence when angry mourners broke away and tried to storm the offices of Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

Sunday's clashes fed into a growing political crisis in Lebanonlinked to the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Opposition leaders and their supporters accuse Syria of being behind the car bombing that killed Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan on Friday. They say Mikati is too close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which is part of Mikati's government.

Thousands turned out in downtown Beirut's Martyrs' Square for Hassan's funeral, which also served as a political rally. The violence erupted after an opposition leader demanded that Mikati step down to pave the way for talks on the crisis.

A group marched to the prime minister's office, then overturned barriers, pulled apart barbed wire coils and threw steel rods, stones and bottle at soldiers and police.

Security forces responded by shooting into air and firing teargas, forcing the protesters to scatter.

On Sunday night, gunmen armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades exchanged fire in southern districts of Beirut, security sources said, and residents could hear the sound of ambulance sirens.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the clashes in the capital, but in the northern city of Tripoli a 9-year-old girl was killed by a sniper and several people were wounded in clashes.

Gunmen have been patrolling the streets in Tripoli, scene of previous clashes between Sunnis and Alawites sympathetic to different sides in the Syria war.

Opposition leader Saad al-Hariri urged supporters to refrain from any more violence.

"We want peace, the government should fall but we want that in a peaceful way. I call on all those who are in the streets to pull back," Hariri said on the Future Television channel.

SECTARIAN TENSIONS

Sunday's events highlighted how the 19-month-old uprising against Assad has sharpened deep-seated sectarian tensions in Lebanon, which is still scarred from its 1975-90 civil war.

Sunni-led rebels are fighting to overthrow Assad, who is from the Alawite minority, which has its roots in Shi'ite Islam. Lebanon's religious communities are divided between those that support Assad and those that back the rebels.

Hassan, 47, was a senior intelligence official who had helped uncover a bomb plot that led to the arrest and indictment in August of a pro-Assad former Lebanese minister.

A Sunni Muslim, he also led an investigation that implicated Syria and the Shi'ite Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon.

Damascus and Hezbollah have condemned Hassan's killing.

But mourners at Martyrs' Square accused Syria of involvement and called for Mikati to quit. One banner read "Go, go Najib" echoing the slogans of the Arab Spring.

The violence broke out after Fouad al-Siniora, a former prime minister, said the opposition rejected any dialogue to overcome the political crisis caused by Hassan's killing unless the government first resigned.

"No talks before the government leaves, no dialogue over the blood of our martyrs," Siniora said to roars of approval from the crowd.

Mikati said on Saturday he had offered to resign to make way for a government of national unity, but that he had accepted a request by President Michel Suleiman to stay in office to allow time for talks on a way out of the political crisis.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans, Leila Bassam and Samia Nakhoul,; Editing by Giles Elgood and Mohammad Zargham)

Jordan foils Qaeda plot, arrests 11 militants: state TV

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan has foiled a plot by an al Qaeda-linked cell to bomb its shopping centres and assassinate Western diplomats, state television said on Sunday, thwarting an attempt to destabilize the key U.S. ally.

Security forces had detained 11 suspects, all Jordanians, in connection with the plot, which envisaged carrying out attacks in the capital Amman using smuggled weapons and explosives from Syria, according to security officials cited by television.

The plot had been active since June.

Minister of Information Samih al Maaytah said the arrests underscored the serious threat posed by radical "terror groups" seeking to undermine the kingdom's long tradition of stability.

A key U.S. ally in the Middle East and Israel's peace partner, Jordan enjoys close ties with Western intelligence agencies and has often been targeted by al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants.

The cell had targeted two major shopping malls in the capital and was planning a bombing campaign in the capital's affluent Abdoun neighborhood, where many foreign embassies are located.

A security source said the suspects had manufactured explosives "aimed at inflicting the heaviest losses possible".

"The group was able to devise new types of explosives to be used for the first time and planned to add TNT to increase their destructive impact," said the source.

The same security source said there was a crucial link with Syria where President Bashar al-Assad is battling to put down an uprising against his family's rule.

"Their plans included getting explosives and mortars from Syria," the security source told Reuters, saying the militants had sought to strike at a time of regional upheaval when the country's security establishment is over stretched.

"EXPLOSIVE BELTS"

The authorities said they had seized large quantities of ammunition, machine guns and other items such as computers. The militants were training to use "suicide bombers using explosive belts and booby-trapped cars", said another security source.

Maaytah told reporters that members of the militant group had spent some time in Syria, without saying when they had returned to Jordan.

"This group arrived from Syria. They have been going in and out," said Maaytah, explaining that the case had been transferred to the state security prosecutor.

Another security source said the cell had been fighting for "some period" alongside Islamist rebel groups in Syria.

Jordan has in recent months arrested scores of hardline Islamist fundamentalists along its northern border with Syria as they were about to cross into the country to join jihadist groups fighting to overthrow Assad.

If Jordan allows Assad's opponents to aid the armed uprising, Amman's security forces fear the Syrian government could retaliate by sending agents to carry out bomb attacks inside the country.

Intercepted electronic mail showed that the cell had received advice from Iraqi Qaeda explosives experts.

Jordan regularly arrests Islamist suspects and puts them on trial in military courts that human rights groups say are illegal and lack proper legal safeguards. Many civic groups also say many of the Islamist cases are politically motivated.

In 2005, al Qaeda claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings that ripped through luxury hotels in Jordan's capital killing dozens of people.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Syrian violence spills into Jordan, Lebanon

BEIRUT (AP) — A Jordanian soldier was killed in clashes with armed militants trying to cross the border into Syria on Monday and sectarian clashes overnight in Lebanon left four dead as Syria's civil war spilled into neighboring countries.

Jordanian Information Minister Sameeh Maaytah said the soldier was the first member of the country's military to be killed in violence related to Syria's civil war. He died in clashes with militants trying to illegally enter Syria to join rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime. Maaytah did not say whether the militants were Jordanians or foreign fighters trying to jump into the fray in the neighboring country.

A statement by the Jordanian military said the soldier was killed in a shootout with a group of eight suspected militants armed with pistols and machineguns. Jordanian troops detained the suspected gunmen and authorities are questioning them, the statement said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner blamed Syria, saying "the onus for this kind of violence rests squarely on the Assad regime."

A number of foreign Islamists have been fighting in Syria alongside the rebels. Jordan's banned Salafi movement — which promotes an ultraconservative brand of Islam — has sent several fighters to Syria in past months and Jordanian border patrols have caught some of them recently.

In Lebanon, troops launched a major security operation to open all roads and force gunmen off the streets, trying to contain an outburst of violence set off by the assassination of a top intelligence official who was a powerful opponent of Syria. Sectarian clashes overnight killed at least two people.

Sporadic cracks of gunfire could be heard in the Lebanese capital as troops began the operation a day after the funeral for the slain official, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan.

Opponents of Syria have blamed the regime in Damascus for the al-Hassan's killing in a Beirut car bomb on Friday. With Lebanon already tense and deeply divided over the civil war next door, the assassination has threatened to drag the country back into the kind of sectarian strife that plagued it for decades — much of it linked to Syria.

In the Lebanese capital, soldiers backed by armored personal carriers with heavy machine guns took up position on major thoroughfares and dismantled roadblocks. At times, troops exchanged gunfire with Sunni gunmen.

Al-Hassan was a Sunni who challenged Syria and its powerful Lebanese ally, the Shiite militant group Hezbollah. The uprising in Syria is dominated by the Sunni majority fightingSyrian President Bashar Assad, who like many in his regime is a member of the Alawite sect — an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Lebanon and Syria share similar sectarian divides that have fed tensions in both countries.

Most of Lebanon's Sunnis have backed Syria's mainly Sunni rebels, while Lebanese Shiites tend to back Assad.

The assassination has imperiled Lebanon's fragile political balance. Many politicians blamed Damascus for the killing and angry protesters tried to storm the government palace after al-Hassan's funeral on Sunday, venting their rage at leaders they consider puppets of a murderous Syrian regime. But were pushed back by troops who opened fire in the air and lobbed volleys of tear gas.

Meanwhile, cease-fire efforts by U.N. and Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimiappeared to be faltering.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA said Damascus supports the truce proposal, but would not commit to halting fire during a four-day Muslim holiday until Western countries and their Gulf allies stop supporting rebels and halt their weapons supplies to the anti-regime fighters.

Brahimi met with Assad in Damascus on Sunday as part of his push for a cease-fire between rebels and government forces for the Eid al-Adha holiday, which begins Oct. 26. He told reporters following a closed-door meeting that he also had held talks earlier with opposition groups inside and outside the country and received "promises" but not a "commitment" from them to honor the cease-fire.

SANA said Assad assured Brahimi that he supported his effort, but that any political solution to the conflict must be "based on the principle of halting terrorism, a commitment from the countries involved in supporting, arming and harboring terrorists in Syria to stop doing such acts."

The U.N. peacekeeping chief, Herve Ladsous, said Monday that the United Nations is already planning for a peacekeeping force in Syria should a cease-fire take hold and pending a Security Council mandate.

Ladsous said, however, it is still too early to say how many peacekeepers might be deployed in such an eventual force.

Diplomats say that Ladsous has told Brahimi he could put together a force of up to 3,000 peacekeepers in the event a longer truce took hold.

But Ladsous said, "it certainly would be premature to mention a figure because it would depend on the situation." He spoke to reporters at a U.N. briefing in New York.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged the international community to support Brahimi and his cease-fire proposal. Ashton toured the Zaatari refugee camp Monday, the first day of her five-day visit to the Middle East.

Jordan hosts around 210,000 Syrian refugees — the largest number in the region, according to the U.N. refugee agency. The Zaatari camp is home to some 35,000 Syrians.

More than 33,000 people have been killed since the uprising started in March last year.

Syrian authorities blame the revolt on a foreign conspiracy and accuse Saudi Arabia andQatar, along with the U.S, other Western countries and Turkey, of funding, training and arming the rebels, whom they describe as "terrorists."

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