Several people wounded in Beirut rocket attacks

Hezbollah leader vows to continue fight in Syria

Two rockets hit a Shiite Muslim district in southern Beirut on Sunday and wounded several people, residents said, a day after the leader of Lebanese Shiite militant movement Hezbollah said his group will continue fighting in Syria until victory.

It was the first attack to apparently target Hezbollah's stronghold in the south of the Lebanese capital since the beginning of the two-year conflict in neighboring Syria, which has sharply heightened Lebanon's own sectarian tensions.

One rocket landed in a car sales yard next to a busy road junction in the Chiah neighborhood, and the other hit an apartment several hundred meters away, wounding five people, residents said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and the army said it was investigating who was behind the attack.

A Lebanese security source said three rocket launchers were found, one of which had misfired or failed to launch, in the hills to the southeast of the Lebanese capital, about 8 km from the area where the two rockets landed.

The rocket strikes came hours after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a powerful supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria's civil war, said his fighters were committed to the conflict whatever the cost.

"We will continue to the end of the road. We accept this responsibility and will accept all sacrifices and expected consequences of this position," he said in a televised speech on Saturday evening. "We will be the ones who bring victory."

A Syrian rebel commander threatened earlier this week to strike against Hezbollah strongholds in retaliation for the militia's military support for Assad. Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group, while most of the rebels are Sunnis.

Street fighting between rival Lebanese groups has been relatively common since the end of the country's 15-year civil war in 1990, but rocket or artillery attacks on Beirut neighborhoods are rare.

The uprising in Syria has polarized Lebanon, with Sunni Muslims supporting the rebellion against Assad and Shiite Hezbollah and its allies standing with him.

Reuters-AP

(China Daily 05/27/2013 page11)