Heavy fighting broke out between pro and anti-government supporters in Lebanon’s central mountains overlooking the capital today sending echoes of gunfire and explosions rolling across Beirut, security officials said.

Gunmen opened fire on a funeral procession today in a Sunni neighbourhood of Beirut killing two and wounding six, a day after Shiite gunmen swept through the Lebanese capital’s Muslim sector, police said.

Lebanon’s parliament failed to elect a successor to President Emile Lahoud just hours before he was due to leave office today, putting the country in a potentially explosive political vacuum.

Lebanon’s rival parties, their nation in political deadlock and facing violence on its northern and southern flanks, are meeting outside Paris today for unusual, long-awaited talks.

A pair of bombs minutes apart tore through two buses near a mountain town north-east of Beirut today.

Soldiers reinforced patrols and checkpoints around Beirut today following a rare night-time curfew imposed by authorities seeking to quell escalating clashes between factions supporting the Western-backed government and Hezbollah protesters trying to bring it down.

Lebanon plunged into fear and gloom today as mourners came to the mountain town of Bikfaya to pay thier last respects to a Christian politician, whose assassination threatened to push the country’s political crisis over the brink.

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.

The Lebanese capital wound down to a minimum today as banks, schools and businesses closed for the funeral of a leading editor, the anti-Syrian Gibran Tueni who was killed in the latest of a string of bombings.

Anti-Syrian journalist and politician Gibran Tueni was killed by a car bomb this morning, a day after he returned from France, where he had been staying periodically for fear of assassination.

Syria is fighting back hard against the UN inquiry into the killing of a Lebanese politician, touting a witness who now says his testimony against Syrian officials was false. But some in Lebanon say Syria is just manoeuvring to discredit an investigation that could lead to its doorstep.

THE United Nations report implicating senior Syrian figures in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri drew heavily on an earlier investigation carried out by three senior members of the gardaí.

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.

A BOMB killed an anti-Syrian politician yesterday in Beirut - the second such assassination in three weeks.

A bomb killed an anti-Syrian politician today in Beirut – the second such assassination in three weeks.

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.

SINCE Georgia’s November 2003 Rose Revolution against Eduard Schvardnadze’s government, a series of other former Soviet governments have fallen after popular revolutions, often with the backing of the US and other Western nations.

A BOMBING in a Christian suburb of east Beirut overshadowed Easter celebrations yesterday and raised fresh fears of a slide back into Lebanon’s violent past.

A day after a bombing injured five people in Beirut, President Emile Lahoud pledged to do his utmost to end the spate of violence that has gripped Lebanon since last month’s assassination of former premier Rafik Hairiri.

A UN report by Deputy Garda Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri demanded a new international investigation after determining that Lebanon’s authorities bungled, if not outright manipulated, their probe of the killing.

A UN report into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has demanded a new international investigation after determining that Lebanon’s authorities bungled, if not outright manipulated, their probe of the killing.

A senior Lebanese army officer has said 4,000 Syrian soldiers – more than a quarter of those serving in Lebanon just a week ago – are back in Syria, but he said a complete withdrawal is nearly a month away at the earliest.

ALMOST all Syrian troops left north Lebanon yesterday, ending an unbroken 29-year presence.

A top anti-Syria Lebanese opposition leader headed to Moscow today for talks on the scaling back of Syria’s military presence in his country, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

President Bashar Assad, responding to weeks of intense pressure, announced today that Syria would move its troops to the Lebanese-Syrian border in a two-step pull-back that he said should satisfy international demands for a complete withdrawal.

Syria began to backtrack today after President Bashar Assad said his troops “maybe” out of Lebanon in a few months.

Syria remained silent about the downfall of its puppet government in Lebanon today after Prime Minister Omar Karami was brought down by people power dubbed The Cedar Revolution.

Defying a ban on protests, about 10,000 people demonstrated against Syrian interference in Lebanon this morning, shortly before parliament was to debate a motion of confidence in the government.

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.

As a stunned Lebanon grieved, dozens of angry mourners attacked Syrian workers in the home town of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a huge bomb blast, while others marched in streets draped with black banners.

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