Hezbollah

Hezbollah: Residents of the southern port fled machine-gun fire and grenade explosions that shook the coastal area in one of the deadliest rounds of violence, seen as a test of the weak government's ability to contain the furies unleashed by the civil war in neighbouring Syria, according to Times Colonist. The fierce battle that al-Assir's fighters were putting up showed how aggressive Sunni extremists have grown in Lebanon, building on anger not only at Syria's regime but also its allies in Hezbollah and BEIRUT - Lebanon's third-largest city of Sidon was turned into a battle zone Monday as the military fought heavily armed followers of an extremist Sunni Muslim cleric holed up in a mosque. Official reports said at least 16 soldiers were killed and 50 were wounded in two days of clashes with armed followers of Ahmad al-Assir, a maverick Sunni sheik whose rapid rise is a sign of the deep frustration among many Lebanese who resent the ascendancy of Shiites to power, led by the militant group Hezbollah. More than 20 of al-Assir's supporters were killed, according to a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to reporters. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.