BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 4 (UPI) -- Partisans of rival political parties belonging to the Druze community clashed east of Beirut Tuesday reflecting tensions among Lebanese over support for Syria.
Security sources said partisans from the Progressive Socialist Party which is opposed to Syria and others from the pro-Syria National Syrian Social Party and al-Tawheed (unity) Movement exchanged fire from personal arms in the town of Jahiliya in the Shouf mountains, southeast of Beirut.
A member of the PSP was killed and five others were injured in the clash in which a member of the NSSP was also wounded.
Sources said the incident was provoked by an argument between the rival partisans over the hanging of posters of Antoun Saadeh, the founder of the NSSP on the anniversary of Saadeh's execution.
Acting Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat, an anti-Syrian and member of the Future Movement of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, charged that "certain parties" which he did not name were seeking to stir conflicts in Lebanon even if they led to casualties.
"It is clear that there are certain parties who seek relentlessly to create tensions and problems notwithstanding that they might result in the occurrence of casualties as it happened today," Fatfat said commenting on the incident which created tensions among the minority Druze community to which the rival partisans belonged.
The PSP of Druze overlord Waleed Jumblat, a former Syria ally, has turned against Damascus after the later forced the extension of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud's mandate in 2004 for another three years.
Hariri's assassination in February 2005 was the straw that broke the camel's back with Jumblat accusing Syria and its Lebanese allies bluntly of standing behind the massive blast that killed Hariri and 19 others.
