An opposition candidate defeated a former president backed by the government to win a parliamentary seat, official results of Lebanese elections showed today.

ARMY and police patrols stood guard yesterday as thousands of Lebanese went to vote in a key election to replace two assassinated lawmakers in the politically torn country.

Hezbollah-led protesters burned tyres and cars and clashed with government supporters, paralysing Beirut and areas across Lebanon in the worst violence yet in the pro-Iranian group’s campaign to topple US-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.

Hezbollah-led opposition protesters paralysed Lebanon today by burning tyres and cars in and around the capital, sparking clashes with government supporters amid a general strike aimed at toppling US-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.

The Hezbollah-led Lebanese opposition today vowed to step up its protest campaign aimed at bringing down the government with daily marches.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said “serious negotiations” were under way over the fate of two Israeli soldiers whose July 12 capture by the militant group sparked a month of brutal fighting in Lebanon.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese paid tribute to Rafik Hariri on the first anniversary of the former premier’s assassination today, waving flags and shouting anti-Syrian slogans in a show of strength aimed at reviving the “people power” spirit that helped break Damascus’ domination.

Lebanese security troops have removed the remains of 25 bodies from a mass grave in the eastern Bekaa Valley town of Anjar, near the former headquarters of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, security officials said today.

Notorious anti-Syrian Christian warlord Samir Geagea was released today after 11 years in prison, his spokeswoman said, in what marked the latest reconciliatory step in civil war-scarred Lebanon in the wake of the recent collapse of Syrian military dominance.

A powerful explosion rocked a Christian suburb of northern Beirut, residents said.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud appointed the anti-Syrian coalition’s candidate Fuad Saniora as prime minister today to head the first Cabinet in 30 years to be free of Syrian interference.

Anti-Syrian candidates appeared to be heading to victory in the last round of elections in northern Lebanon, early election results showed.

THE firebrand former general Michel Aoun emerged yesterday as Lebanon’s main Christian political force after scoring a stunning win in parliamentary elections only weeks after returning from exile.

Anti-Syrian Christian leader Michel Aoun, who returned from 14 years’ exile only five weeks ago, handed other anti-Syrian opposition groups a surprising defeat in Lebanese parliamentary elections.

Anti-Syrian Christian leader Michel Aoun, who returned from 14 years’ exile only five weeks ago, appeared poised to hand other anti-Syrian opposition groups a surprising defeat in Lebanese parliamentary elections, denying them the majority they had hoped to muster in their drive to end Syria’s political control.

ANTI-SYRIAN rivals battled it out at the ballot boxes yesterday as voters crowded polling stations to vote in the most crucial round of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections.

A SON of the assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has launched his campaign to take his father's parliamentary seat.

Anti-Syrian leader Michel Aoun returned to Beirut today from 14 years’ exile in France – to a crowd of cheering supporters at the airport and less than two weeks after Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon.

An explosion rocked a shopping area and sparked a fire near a Christian radio station and a church in the port city of Jounieh, north of Beirut, killing at least one person.

An explosion rocked the port city of Jounieh in the Christian heartland north of Beirut tonight. Six people were reportedly wounded.

SYRIA, under world pressure to quit Lebanon, promised yesterday to shift its troops to eastern areas this month, but the presidents of the two countries failed to set a deadline for a full withdrawal.

LEBANON mourned assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri yesterday as opposition leaders bluntly implicated Syria in an attack that Lebanese authorities said might have been a suicide bombing.

Lebanon’s billionaire former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a massive bomb explosion that ravaged his motorcade on Beirut’s famed seafront corniche today.

The Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel has said its Beirut office received a call from someone who said a previously unknown group carried out the car bomb attack in which former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and nine others died.

Lebanese students and activists defied government warnings today and demonstrated in their thousands against Syria’s domination of their country.