Thousands of flag-waving opposition protesters streamed across Beirut Sunday for the latest mass rally in Hezbollah's campaign to bring down the government.
Waving white-and-red Lebanese flags and chanting anti-government slogans, around 20,000 protestors swarmed to Riyadh al-Solha and Martyr Squares in downtown Beirut for the gathering which officially began at 3 PM (13:00 GMT).
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television claimed the rally would dwarf the Dec. 1 march that kicked off the opposition campaign.
An army spokesman said that the demonstration was "unprecedented in the history of Lebanon", expecting that "hundreds of thousands" people had gathered in the heart of Beirut.
Lebanese TV stations' footage showed thousands of soldiers and police, backed by armored personnel carriers, tightening security across Beirut.
However, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora Sunday vowed his government would overcome the challenge posed by the protesters.
"Lebanon is a strong country. We will overcome this crisis," Siniora said from his government offices as thousands of demonstrators massed outside for a 10th straight day. "Our political and democratic regime is facing a challenge," Siniora added.
Convoys of buses, flags aloft and bearing portraits of opposition leaders, ground to a halt as they ferried protestors into the grid-locked capital.
"Change is coming," read banners carried by demonstrators as loudspeakers blared out speeches by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who has vowed to keep his supporters on the streets until a new national unity cabinet is appointed.
In addition to Lebanese flags, some demonstrators waved orange banners and photos of Christian former general Michel Aoun, along with yellow Hezbollah flags and the green standards of the Shi'ite Amal movement.
As the political crisis deepens, increasing fears that Lebanon could plunge back into civil strife, opposition forces vowed to escalate their actions and paralyze main roads, including the Beirut airport road, the liberal Al-Balad newspaper stated.
(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2006)
