Sunni Muslims Lebanon

In a country where political agreements translate easily into dollars and cents, Lebanon's commerce-minded Sunni Muslim community views this country's May 22 cooperation treaty with Syria as a step they can bank on. Although stability in postwar Lebanon may not come automatically, it now at least has a guarantor. Syria is underpinning the Lebanese government's attempts to regain control over the whole country.

In a country where political agreements translate easily into dollars and cents, Lebanon's commerce-minded Sunni Muslim community views this country's May 22 cooperation treaty with Syria as a step they can bank on. Although stability in postwar Lebanon may not come automatically, it now at least has a guarantor. Syria is underpinning the Lebanese government's attempts to regain control over the whole country.

The Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims of Lebanon and elsewhere have been warring with each other for years. The Muslims and Christians in Lebanon are slaughtering each other with indiscriminate shelling of men, women and children. Can you imagine what would happen if a belligerent Muslim Palestinian state were to be set up under the auspices of the PLO on Israel's border? Your articles continue to use, more often than not, the term "stones" being thrown against Israelis. They are rocks, chunks of bricks, not stones.

BEIRUT - Lebanese leaders called on their people Sunday to reject sectarian attacks after a pair of rockets slammed into a Beirut neighborhood, raising fears that spillover violence from the conflict in neighboring Syria had come to the Lebanese capital. The early-morning strike, which left four men wounded, was widely seen as an attempt to foment sectarian strife and discord in a nation that shares many of the demographic traits of Syria, where a more-than-two-year conflict has played out across religious and ethnic lines.

BEIRUT - In the last few days, thousands of Syrians have poured across the borders of neighboring countries, fleeing increasing violence in their homeland but creating tension elsewhere. More than 170,000 Syrians have sought sanctuary in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq - at least 12,000 of them just in the last three days - leading to a growing humanitarian crisis, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday. At least 168 people were killed across the country Friday, activists said, many of them in the cities of Aleppo, Damascus and Dara, as the regime of President Bashar Assad uses attack helicopters and warplanes with greater frequency in its assaults on towns and cities.

Palestinian guerrillas broke out of a besieged Beirut refugee camp Tuesday, seized four high-rise buildings and poured heavy fire onto the Shia Muslim militiamen who surrounded them, witnesses reported. Several hours after the Palestinian surge, a Shia leader arranged a cease-fire that halted, at least temporarily, more than 48 hours of fierce fighting around three refugee camps in Beirut. At least 121 people were killed and nearly 650 wounded in the battles, police said.