Mass Pro-Syria Rally Shows Lebanese Split

BEIRUT — Pouring in from the countryside in a massive show of political force, hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah backers crammed into the Lebanese capital Tuesday to shout "Death to America!" and yell praise for Syria.

The swarms of people who answered the group's call to protest pressure from the United States and its allies dwarfed the anti-Damascus crowds that had rallied in Beirut in recent weeks. The heavily Shiite Muslim crowd hoisted portraits of Syrian President Bashar Assad and pumped fists skyward to the crack of drums.

Speaking before a crowd that stretched off into the distance, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah discounted the significance of opposition protesters that have camped out in the last three weeks calling for an end to Syrian domination of its neighbor.

"If you think that the government might fall or security might fall from a few demonstrations on a few streets and a few media outlets, then you're very wrong," Nasrallah said. "If you really want to defend freedom in Lebanon and democracy in Lebanon, then you must look with your two eyes: Are we not the people of the Lebanon you love?"

The Hezbollah supporters denounced the United Nations, the United States, France and especially Israel for pressuring Syria to obey a U.N. resolution to withdraw its troops.

The demonstration marked a major shift in the political crisis over Syria's domination of this Mediterranean country. Tuesday's crowds left no doubt that Lebanon is a nation divided over the role of Syria -- and that the split had exacerbated some of the sectarian fault lines that in 1975 pitched the country into a 15-year civil war.

"I have four kids, and sometimes at night I can't sleep because I'm so worried that my kids will live what I lived during the war," said Maha Dbouk, a 34-year-old Shiite businesswoman who picked her way through the crowds with a sign reading, "No to foreign intervention."

Until Tuesday, Shiite Muslims, who are believed to make up about half of Lebanon's population, had been notably silent in the debate over Syria's pervasive influence. Opposition leaders and the demonstrators who have been calling for Syrian withdrawal under the slogan "Independence 2005" have portrayed themselves as representing popular opinion.