Ryan DeSimone

 

GUNBATTLES BREAK OUT IN BEIRUTE

 

I.

            Fighting in the streets of Beirute broke out on Thursday after the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasralla, declared open war after recent government actions.  There were reports of open fights on neighborhood streets.  Lebanese soldiers had to use tear gas to disperse the crowds from the streets.  The fighting in confined to the Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods.  There was no fighting going on in the Christian neighborhoods. 

The Lebanese army had to take cover and refuse to react because there was so much fighting taking place and there was so much gun fire.  It was reported that there were even rocket-propelled grenades being launched.  Nasralla blamed going to war on the governments banning of the Hezbollah telecommunication system.  The government recently deemed the Hezbollah telecommunication system illegal.  Nasralla said that if the government withdrew their decision there would be no more war.

 

II.

A.   I believe that this article relates to the second AP World theme because the interaction of the Hezbollah and the government sparks this war.

B.    The Hezbollah started during the Lebanese civil war and is basically a resistance to the government.

C.    The person writing this article is an insider to this issue because it was said in the article that this was being reported when the author is taking cover with the Lebanese army while the fighting is going on outside.

D.   The author could be making it sound more violent than what was really going on.

E.    I would like to hear from Nasralla himself the banning of the telecommunication system sounds like something very small to go into a full out war about I would like to hear the underlying issue in this case.

F.    I feel that it is horrible that a war could come about so easily and that it could escalate that quickly to something so horrific.  Many people are going to be dieing over this small issue of telecommunication.