While the Hizbullah siege of Prime Minister Siniora’s government continues, Sunnis and Shias had a confrontation at two different points in the tense city:

Opposition and government supporters on Sunday were engaged in two separate street fights in Beirut, as opposition leader Talal Arslan pledged to “smash the government under the boots.”

Security sources said four people were wounded in the clashes which took place in the densely-populated Tarik Jedideh neighborhood and on the Badaro-Qasqas highway.

Shiite supporters from the southern suburbs trying to infiltrate into Tarik Jedideh, a low-income Sunni quarter, clashed with pro-government supporters with stones, sticks and knives, witnesses told Naharnet.

They said sporadic bursts of automatic gunfire could be heard in the confrontation which lasted about 45 minutes before army troops and police patrols stepped in to disengage the opponents.

The army threw a security dragnet in Tarik Jedideh in an effort to prevent followers of the pro-Syrian Hizbullah and Amal movement from stirring trouble in the Sunni neighborhood.

Another confrontation was reported between supporters of Hizbullah and Amal and others from the Lebanese Forces, the Christian faction led by Samir Geagea, on the Badaro-Qasqas highway.

It appears to me that by “infiltrating” the Sunni quarter, Hassan Nasrallah’s Hizbullah was seeking to deliberately provoke a confrontation. Perhaps if it is violent enough, it will give him an excuse to deploy his crack militia – perhaps even attack the government building he has now surrounded and, for all practical purposes, holds under siege.

Nasrallah does not appear to want to wait long to force a denouement to this crisis. His provocative move of surrounding the government building on Friday and setting up roadblocks to prevent any assistance from reaching Siniora and his cabinet (who have been holed up in the fortress like building since the funeral of Pierre Gemayel) would seem to indicate that he believes time is not on his side. Only the intervention of the Saudi Ambassador who phoned Speaker Nabih Berri lifted the “blockade: set up by Hizbullah:

Hizbullah protestors, vowing to topple the cabinet, have briefly besieged government headquarters in downtown Beirut, holding up Prime Minister Fouad Saniora and several other ministers inside.

But Saniora, vowing not to “allow any coup against our democratic regime,” stood rock-solid Friday to the blockade, which eventually eased following a flurry of diplomatic activity.

As news of the siege reached New York and Saudi Arabia, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz telephoned Saniora to express support for his government.

French President Jacque Chirac and Jordan’s King Abdullah II were also among the leaders who phoned in their support to Saniora’s government.

A government source said the blockade was lifted late Friday after diplomatic “contacts” had been made with pro-Syrian Speaker Nabih Berri as well as the Lebanese army command.

Youth and Sports Minister Ahmed Fatfat, who was among the ministers holed up with Saniora, said the Saudi ambassador in Beirut called Berri, an ally of Hizbullah, the main opposition group, to help “stop the siege”.

“Berri played a very positive role … especially since there were reports that there would be a break-in” into Saniora’s offices, Fatfat told the pro-government Future television. He was speaking from inside the compound.

The leading daily An Nahar said Saturday that “disciplinary members” from Hizbullah quickly set up tents around Saniora’s offices as the protest dwindled late Friday afternoon, blocking access to the Grand Serail.

The crowds of protesters have been dwindling over the last 24 hours although there are still several hundred thousand people present. Perhaps Nasrallah wants to finish off the government while he still has some muscle in the streets.

Abu Kais has some insightful thoughts, including some inside news on some other provocations by Hizbullah:

LBC is reporting riots involving Sunnis and Shias in the neighborhood of Qasqas as I type this. The Lebanese army has intervened. (Update: The clashes were reportedly between a Hizbullah convoy passing through the area and Sunni residents)

Yesterday, around 300 Hizbullah members reportedly chased a man who hurled insults at Hassan Nasrallah and then fled towards nearby Ashrafieh. The Lebanese army stopped the advance of the militia on the Christian neighborhood and arrested the individual, who turned out to be a Syrian citizen by the name of Hamzah Mohamad Sadeq Ismail. Al-Mustaqbal described this as a Syrian intelligence attempt to create clashes, although one wonders what Hizbullah was thinking by sending 300 members to a Christian neighborhood boiling with rage.

Following a meeting yesterday with representatives from the Internal Security Forces and the Lebanese army, the Iran-funded militia has refused yet again to remove its tents and clear the main road leading to the Grand Serail. An-Nahar reported that Hizbullah’s information warfare division has been filming the area around the Serail. It is not clear what this means. A Hizbullah-Syrian attempt to storm the building was foiled on the first day of the protest, after an intervention by the Saudi King via Nabih Berri, who has promised to resolve the situation in a couple of days.

I speculated last week that Berri may be the key to resolving the crisis. He was the only major Shia politician to attend the Gemayel funeral. And he has made conciliatory noises about the Tribunal (although his attitude hardened after a trip to Tehran). The party Berri heads, Amal, used to be Hizbullah’s enemy with several bloody clashes taking place during the civil war. And Amal is not a religious party per se; it represents the Shias but more in terms of economic and cultural matters.

But Berri is definitely pro-Syrian. And Amal has shown no desire to join the democrats in freeing Lebanon from the grip of Syrian hegemony. If Berri is to play a role in peacemaking, it will be out of a desire to keep Nasrallah from pulling the nation into another civil war – something none of the factions want.

The Sunni-Shia clashes are ominous. One wonders what tomorrow will bring as Nasrallah continues to ratchet up the pressure on the Siniora government while the nation holds its breath and prays for peace.

UPDATE: AP REPORTS ONE DEAD, 10 INJURED

Here’s the AP story:

Violent clashes broke out Sunday between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the capital, leaving one man dead from gunshot wounds at a time when tensions throughout Lebanon threaten the country’s fragile sectarian and political balance.

Tension has been running high in Lebanon, particularly since Friday when Hezbollah supporters began an open-ended sit-in in Beirut in an effort to bring down the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.

Saniora, emboldened by Arab and international support for his U.S.-backed government, vowed on Sunday to stay in office despite the ongoing protests.

Amid the sound of revolutionary and nationalist songs blaring from protesters’ tents set up in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, a Mass was held at Saniora’s office in memory of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel who was assassinated by gunmen in a Beirut suburb last month.

The service appeared to be a show of solidarity with the government, which draws its support largely from Sunni

It is possible that the confrontation was by happenstance and not by design. That hardly makes it any less ominous. Clearly, Nasrallah is expecting and indeed counting on such confrontations that may give him an excuse to move against the government.

UPDATE II

Dan Riehl has an interesting historical comparison between the siege of Vienna in 1529 and the current siege in Lebanon of Siniora’s government.

I see where he’s going but somehow, I don’t think Nasrallah is going to be quite as patient as that long ago Muslim leader Suleiman the Magnificent.