MIDDLE EAST: A Lebanese opposition figure called for popular protests to continue until Syria quits Lebanon even though the Syrian-backed government announced its resignation yesterday.
"The opposition announces the continuation of the protests until the total Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon," Elias Atallah told a cheering protest in central Beirut minutes after prime minister Omar Karami announced the resignation of his government.
"The battle is long, and this is the first step, this is the battle for freedom, sovereignty and independence," opposition MP Ghattas Khouri said.
The opposition's main figure, Walid Jumblatt, said the "people have won" and called for calm. "I believe the main aim was to bring down the government. We have achieved this," Mr Jumblatt told Lebanon's LBC television.
"Today we are at a new turning point in the history of the country . . . We have entered a stage where there must be calm."
Earlier thousands of protesters defied an official ban and hundreds of soldiers. Banks, schools and businesses closed, following an opposition call for a general strike to coincide with the debate over the former prime minister's assassination.
Hundreds of Lebanese soldiers with assault rifles fanned out in an otherwise deserted downtown Beirut. Metal barricades and barbed wire barred roads to the protest scene and to parliament.
Army checkpoints on roads into Beirut turned away cars and buses carrying people into the capital to demonstrate. But soldiers took no action against demonstrators draped in Lebanese flags who staged an overnight sit-in in Martyrs Square, near Rafiq Hariri's grave.
They let small groups join the protest, despite the official ban, but the crowd of a few thousand was smaller than the tens of thousands that have marched over the past two weeks.
Protesters demanded the government resign and chanted "Syria out" and "Freedom, sovereignty, independence".
Syria plays a dominant role in Lebanon and maintains 14,000 troops there. Pressure has been growing within Lebanon and abroad for a military withdrawal. But President Bashar al-Assad repeated his denial that Syria had a hand in the bombing, in an interview with an Italian newspaper. "For us it would be like political suicide," he said.
He indicated a total withdrawal from Lebanon would be linked to peace with arch-foe Israel and was not therefore imminent.
"From a technical viewpoint, the repatriation [ of Syrian forces] could happen within the end of the year. But from a strategic viewpoint, it will only happen if we get serious guarantees. In a word, peace," Mr Assad said.
Mr Jumblatt added that no one wanted enmity with the Syrians. - (Reuters)