Lebanese troops try to restore calm

Troops in Lebanon have begun a major security operation to force gunmen off the streets, trying to contain the violence prompted by the murder of a top intelligence official.

Syria has been blamed for the killing of General Wissam al-Hassan in a Beirut car bomb on Friday. With Lebanon already tense and deeply divided over the civil war next door, the murder has threatened to drag the country back into the kind of sectarian strife that plagued it for decades – much of it linked to Syria.