By IRNA
Beirut : Lebanese opposition on Monday called for inquiry into the killing of seven men in clashes with troops and riots that were reminiscent of Lebanon’s last civil war.
Lebanon’s religious leader Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah gave warning the violence could spin out of control.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora declared a national day of mourning and ordered universities and schools closed in an obvious attempt to prevent further friction among the political factions.
On Sunday, an angry protest by government opponents against electricity rationing, had quickly degenerated into violence and clashes with troops, with rioters blocking major roads, including the airport highway.
The clashes invoked memories of the 1975-90 civil war because they took place along the war’s former demarcation line between Christian and Muslim areas, and near a district where the bloody conflict that killed 150,000 people began.
The army, seeking to ease tensions with the Shia community that has long been a strong ally, said Monday it regretted the loss of life and pledged “extreme seriousness” in an investigation into what happened.
Siniora late Sunday urged the people to wait for the results of the investigation and to rally behind the military. He also declared the victims ‘martyrs of all the nation’.
“Our nation is going through its most difficult and dangerous times and circumstances, threatening the collapse in our hands of what we have built in the past years,” he said.