Lebanese security sources announced Sunday said four people were wounded in two separate clashes between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the densely-populated Tarik Jedideh neighborhood and on the Badaro-Qasqas highway in Beirut.

According to the local Naharnet news website, Shiite supporters from the southern suburbs tried to infiltrate into Tarik Jedideh, a low-income Sunni quarter, where they clashed with pro-government supporters armed with stones, sticks and knives.

Sporadic bursts of automatic gunfire were heard during the fight which lasted about 45 minutes before army troops and police patrols stepped in to disengage the opponents.

The army threw a security dragnet around Tarik Jedideh to prevent followers of the pro-Syrian Hezbollah and Amal movements from causing strife in the Sunni neighborhood, said the report.

Another confrontation was reported between supporters of Hezbollah and Amal and partisans of the Lebanese Forces, a pro-government Christian faction, on the Badaro-Qasqas highway.

Lebanon's opposition supporters have been staging a mass protest which has now entered its third day. The open-ended rally aims to bring down Prime Minister Fouad Seniora's government, which was abandoned by six pro-Syrian ministers last month amidst widespread accusations of corruption after the July-August war with Israel.

The pro-Syrian Al-Akhbar paper states the protest was held due to the government's insistence on isolating some political groups, and that a large number of crowds participating in the protest proved this feeling echoed in the minds of many Lebanese.

Meanwhile, the leftist As Safir newspaper said that it was unreasonable for Seniora to describe the protestors as outlaws. It continued saying the opposition's protest was "civilized" and that the government was the one responsible for Lebanon's current crisis.

However, anti-Syrian Al-Mustaqbal daily accused pro-Syrian Hezbollah of using the demonstration as part of "its coup" against the current government.

"The Syrian-Iranian camp, led by Hezbollah, has begun to implement a plot for a coup" in Lebanon with the demonstration and attempts to besiege the Seniora cabinet, it said.

The daily is owned by the family of Rafik Hariri whose 2005 murder, blamed on Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies, led to massive street protests that forced Damascus to cease its military presence in Lebanon.

Hundreds of protestors, spending the nights in white tents setup in Riyadh Al-Solh and Martyrs squares in Beirut, are still on the streets, saying their vigil will continue until their goals are met.

(Xinhua News Agency December 4, 2006)