DAMASCUS, Syria — Bashar Assad vowed on Friday to rid the country of Muslim extremists whom he blamed for a suicide blast that killed dozens of people, including a top Sunni preacher who was a staunch supporter of the Syrian president.

And, in a warning to rebels battling to topple his regime, the Syrian leader pledged that his troops will "wipe out" and clear the country of the "forces of darkness."

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Assad's statement came as the Syrian health ministry raised the death toll from Thursday night's bombing in Damascus to 49, after seven of the wounded died overnight in hospital.

In the attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in the heart of the Syrian capital, killing Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti as he was giving a sermon. The blast also wounded 84 people.

The government declared Saturday as a day of mourning and state-run Syrian TV halted its regular programs on Friday to air readings from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, as well as speeches by the late cleric.

His killing was one of the most stunning assassinations of the two-year civil war and marked a new low in the conflict.

While suicide bombings blamed on Islamic extremists fighting with the rebels have become common, the latest attack was the first time a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a mosque.

The grandson of the 84-year-old al-Buti was among those killed in the attack.

In the statement carried by Syria's state SUNA news agency, Assad said al-Buti represented true Islam in facing "the forces of darkness and extremist" ideology.

"Your blood and your grandson's, as well as that of all the nation's martyrs will not go in vain because we will continue to follow your thinking to wipe out their darkness and clear our country of them," Assad said.

Syria's crisis started in March 2011 as peaceful protests against Assad's authoritarian rule. The revolt turned into a civil war as some opposition supporters took up arms the fight a harsh government crackdown on dissent. The United Nations says more than 70,000 people have been killed since.

Al-Buti was the most senior religious figure to be killed in Syria's civil war and his slaying was a major blow to Assad.

The preacher had been a vocal supporter of the regime since the early days of Assad's father and predecessor, the late President Hafez Assad, providing a Sunni cover and legitimacy to their rule.

Sunnis are the majority sect in Syria while Assad is from the minority Alawite sect — an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

In a speech earlier this month, al-Buti had said it was "a religious duty to protect the values, the land and the nation" of Syria.

"There is no difference between the army and the rest of the nation," he said at the time — a clear endorsement of Assad's forces in their effort to crush the rebels.

The mosque bombing was also among the most serious security breaches in Damascus. In July, an attack that targeted a high-level government crisis meeting killed four top regime officials, including Assad's brother-in-law and the defense minister.

Last month, a car bomb that struck in the same area, which houses the headquarters of Syria's ruling Baath party, killed at least 53 people and wounded more than 200.

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AMMAN — Multiple bomb explosions on Wednesday hit a hilltop area in Damascus populated by members of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect, marking escalation of sectarian attacks in a conflict that has deepened religious Middle East divides.

The attack occurred a day after deadly tit-for-tat attacks in segregated neighborhoods of the capital, deepening the divide between the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam backed by Iran that has ruled Syria since the 1960s, and Sunnis leading the 19-month revolt against the Assad family rule. 

The uprising against 42 years of autocratic rule by Assad and his late father has claimed more than 32,000 lives and left many parts of Syria in ruins. 

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It has polarized the United States and Russia and drawn in regional powers, widening the Middle East rift between Sunnis and Shi'ite Muslims. 

Smoke was seen rising from the Alawite enclave, known as Mezze 86, which is situated near the presidential palace, from what appeared to be heavy-caliber mortar bombs, several residents of Damascus said by phone. 

"Ambulances are heading to the area and the shabbiha (pro-Assad militiamen) are firing automatic rifles madly in the air," said a housewife who did not want to be further identified. 

Syrian state television said the attack was carried out by mortar bombs, causing casualties, but gave no further details. 

A car bomb exploded on Tuesday near a mosque in al-Qadam, a southern working-class Sunni neighborhood of the capital, killing and wounding dozens, opposition activists said. 

Al-Qadam, from where rebels operate, has been the target of heavy Syrian army artillery barrages in the last several weeks. Syrian warplanes have also hit the area. 

Air strikes and artillery barrages unleashed by the Syrian military in the last few weeks have wrecked whole districts of the capital, as well as parts of towns and cities elsewhere. 

Yet, for all their firepower, Assad's forces seem no closer to crushing their lightly armed opponents, who in turn have so far proved unable to topple the Syrian leader. 

Earlier, in Hai al-Wuroud, an Alawite neighborhood on a hill on the northwest edge of the city, a bombing killed at least 10 people, according to state media. 

Bomb attacks along sectarian lines have escalated lately in the 19-month-old uprising against Assad. Last month several bombs exploded during the Muslim Eid holiday near mosques in Sunni districts and the Damascus suburbs, killing and injuring dozens of people, activists said. 

The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, said Assad's forces killed 154 people across Syria on Tuesday, mostly civilians in aerial and ground bombardment on Damascus and its suburbs, and the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. 

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has suggested offering Assad immunity from prosecution as a way of persuading him to leave power, said on Wednesday that Assad would still have to face justice. 

The U.N. human rights office has said Syrian officials suspected of committing or ordering crimes against humanity should face prosecution at the International Criminal Court. U.N. investigators have been gathering evidence of atrocities committed by rebels as well as by Assad loyalists. 

"I would like to see President Assad face full international justice for the appalling crimes he has meted out on his people," Cameron said on a visit to Zaatari, a camp housing about 30,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan. 

"I am standing with the Syrian border just behind me and every night 500 refugees are fleeing the most appalling persecution and bloodshed to come to safety and frankly what we have done so far is not working," he added. 

Cameron said Britain wanted Assad to leave power and see a peaceful political transition and a safe country for the future. 

"The history of the country behind me, Syria, is being written in the blood of its own people," he added. 

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that Syria, where some 32,000 people have died in the upheaval, could end up a collapsed state like Somalia, prey to warlords and militias. 

The United Nations has put Syria's government on a "list of shame" of countries that abuse children, saying Assad loyalists have killed, maimed, tortured and detained children as young as nine. Leila Zerrougui, special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, told Reuters on Tuesday the body was also investigating the opposition. 

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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Updated at 6:45 p.m. ET: Explosions hit the Hai al-Wuroud district in northwest Damascus on Tuesday, killing at least 15, Syrian state media and regime foes reported. Also Tuesday, gunmen shot dead the brother of the parliament speaker in the latest rebel attack on a figure associated with the ruling elite.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group monitoring the violence, said at least 40 were wounded in the attack that used three bombs.

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Hai al-Wuroud, a hilltop neighborhood inhabited mostly by members of President Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect, is situated near barracks and housing for elite army units.

Damascus has several hilltop enclaves mostly inhabited by the Alawite, a sect of Shiite Islam that has dominated Syria, which has a Sunni Muslim majority, since the 1960s.

Later Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near a shopping center in northeast Damascus, killing and injuring several people, opposition activists in the capital said. This latest spate of violence came a day after more than 250 people were killed, according to an activist monitoring group.

The bomb went off near Qasioun Mall in the religiously and ethnically mixed area of Ibn al-Nafis, they said.

The opposition said at least 100 more people were killed elsewhere in the civil war.

"Lots of people were hit inside their apartments. Rescue efforts are hampered because electricity was cut off right after the explosion," said Abu Hamza al-Shami.

State television said gunmen had assassinated Mohammed Osama al-Laham, brother of the speaker of parliament, in Damascus's Midan district. No group claimed immediate responsibility.

 

The United Nations and Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said in an interview with the newspaper al-Hayat that Syria could "turn into a new Somalia" unless the 19-month-old crisis ends soon, the BBC reported. Brahimi said he fears warlords and militias could come in to fill a void left by a collapsed state, according to the BBC.

Safe exit for Syria's Assad 'could be arranged,' says British prime minister

The Syrian uprising has left more than 32,000 dead since it began with peaceful protests in March 2011.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday before a visit to Saudi Arabia that a safe exit and possible immunity from prosecution for Assad "could be arranged" if it would end the conflict.

"Done. Anything, anything, to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria," Cameron told the Saudi-based Al Arabiya news network in Abu Dhabi when asked about offering Assad safe passage.

Suicide bomb ups death toll in Syria to 269 since Sunday, groups say

"Of course I would favor him facing the full force of international law and justice for what he's done. I am certainly not offering him an exit plan to Britain, but if he wants to leave he could leave, that could be arranged," he said.

It was unclear if Cameron had spoken to other U.N. Security Council members about the idea, which could involve offering Assad immunity from prosecution if he accepted asylum in a third country. Nor was it clear what nation would take him.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad assaulted rebel strongholds in Aleppo on Wednesday in one of their biggest ground attacks since rebels seized chunks of the country's biggest city three weeks ago.

Assad must win the battle for Aleppo if he is to reassert his authority nationwide, although diverting military forces for an offensive to regain control there has already allowed rebels to seize large swathes of countryside in the north.

Aleppo, at the heart of Syria's failing economy, has taken a fearful pounding since the 17-month-old uprising against Assad finally took hold in a city that had stayed mostly aloof.

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"We have retreated, get out of here," a lone rebel fighter yelled at Reuters journalists as they arrived in Aleppo's Salaheddine district. Nearby checkpoints that had been manned by rebel fighters for the last week had disappeared.

Satellite images show Syria's bombardment of Aleppo, Amnesty says

Syrian state television said government forces had pushed into Salaheddine, killing most of the rebels there, and had entered other parts of the city in a new offensive.

It said dozens of "terrorists" were killed in the central district of Bab al-Hadeed, close to Aleppo's ancient citadel, and Bab al-Nayrab in the southeast.

'Situation is desperate' at makeshift hospitals on Syrian-Turkish border

But a rebel spokesman in Salaheddine, the southern gateway to Aleppo, denied Assad's troops had taken full control. "Syrian forces are positioned on one side of Salaheddine but they haven't entered and clashes are continuing," Abu Mohammed said.

According to the BBC, Wassel Ayub, a commander from the rebel Free Syrian Army, told the AFP news agency by phone: "For an hour and a half the Free Syrian Army has staged a counter-attack and reclaimed three streets out of five seized by regime forces."

Another FSA commander, Abdel Jabbar al-Oqaidi, told AFP news agency via Skype, according to the BBC: "It is not true the regime army has seized control of the district. It is true that there is a barbaric and savage attack."

One activist with the rebel Free Syrian Army, who asked not to be named, said insurgents had fallen back to the nearby neighborhood of Saif al-Dawla, which was now under fire from army tanks inside Salaheddine and from combat jets.

Reporting from Aleppo, Al Jazeera's correspondent Ahmed Zaidan said "a large number of people have been killed or injured in a fierce battle near Salaheddine in which advanced Russian tanks have been used by the government forces."

Also reporting from Aleppo, journalist Martin Chulov, of the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper tweeted Wednesday: "Spent afternoon in Salahedin [sic] #Aleppo. No regime troops inside. Battlelines have not shifted. Lots of shelling and helicopters."

Bodies recovered from destroyed home near Aleppo

The intensity of the conflict in Aleppo and elsewhere suggests that Assad remains determined to cling to power, with support from Iran and Russia, despite setbacks such as this week's defection of his newly installed prime minister.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition watchdog, said more than 60 people had been killed across Syria on Wednesday, including 15 civilians in Aleppo. It put Tuesday's death toll at more than 240 nationwide.

Struggle for survival
Satellite images released by Amnesty International, obtained from July 23 to Aug.  1, showed more than 600 craters, probably from artillery shelling, dotting Aleppo and its environs.

"Amnesty is concerned that the deployment of heavy weaponry in residential areas in and around Aleppo will lead to further human rights abuses and grave breaches of international law," the human rights group said, adding that both sides might be held criminally accountable for failing to protect civilians.

The military's assaults in Aleppo follow its successful drive to retake neighborhoods seized by rebels in Damascus after a July 18 bomb attack that killed four of Assad's closest aides, including his feared brother-in-law Assef Shawkat.

On Monday Assad suffered the embarrassment of seeing his prime minister, Riyad Hijab, defect after only two months in office. Hijab apparently fled to Jordan with his family.

Yet even such high-profile defections and outside diplomatic pressure seem unlikely to deflect Assad from what has become a bitter struggle for survival between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and a ruling system dominated by the president's minority Alawite sect, an esoteric offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Jordan's King Abdullah said he believed Assad would stick to his guns. "He believes that he is in the right. I think that the regime feels that it has no alternative but to continue," the monarch told U.S. broadcaster CBS.

He said Assad might try to carve out an Alawite enclave if he could not control of all Syria, describing such a territorial breakup as the "worst-case scenario" for its neighbors.

"If Syria then implodes on itself that would create problems that would take us decades to come back from," Abdullah said.

Assad has little sympathy in Jordan or other Sunni-ruled Arab nations, but he can count on staunch support from Iran, whose Shiite leaders see Syria, along with Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement, as a pillar of an "axis of resistance" against the United States and Israel.

Sarkozy urges action
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy called on Wednesday for rapid international intervention in Syria, likening its conflict to the early days of war in Libya in which he mobilized NATO-led action that helped rebels oust Moammar Gadhafi.

Breaking a long silence since losing May's presidential election to Socialist Francois Hollande, Sarkozy said he had spoken at length to Syrian opposition leader Abdulbaset Sieda this week and they agreed on the need for foreign intervention in the uprising against Assad.

"They noted a total convergence in their views on the seriousness of the Syrian crisis as well as the need for rapid action by the international community to avoid massacres," said the statement signed by Sarkozy and Sieda, who is president of the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council.

In contrast with Libyan conflict, Western powers are wary of intervention in Syria due to Assad's alliances with Russia and Iran, and Syria's position at the heart of sectarian divisions that radiate across the Middle East.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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NORTHERN SYRIA – Every war has its demons. The chaos of bullets and bombs gives rise to a certain breed of men who join the fight for the thrill of killing, and to stand before begging prisoners and cowering women in damp tattered clothing. 

In Syria these monsters in civilian clothing who are the enforcers for President Bashar Assad’s regime are called the “shabiha.”

I’m staying in one of their family’s homes.

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Syria’s ghost-like devils
It’s a small house with a vaulted stone ceiling. The shower is a bucket on the floor that slopes into a drain. There’s an outhouse in the garden with a fig tree.  The house looks like many in this rural village flanked by olive, walnut and almond groves.  

Syrian troops withdraw from 'secondary towns' and pound Aleppo

The shabiha left this village when the army pulled out to re-group and attack Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital and the focus of the battle to control the north of the country. Before they left, there were about 50 shabiha in the village by most rebel counts.  

Some lived among the rebels as spies. Others operated as plainclothes commandoes, arresting rebels or just shooting them and their families. I’ve seen a video of shabiha using a chainsaw to cut off a rebel’s head.  I saw a shabiha prisoner tied up with wires. The rebels accused him of raping 10 girls. The youngest girl was said to be just 14.  

Shabiha is a difficult word to translate into English. It comes from the word Syrians used to describe the luxury Mercedes favored by the Assad family’s operatives that the enforcers of the regime used to move money, smuggle weapons and intimidate opponents.

Whenever someone in a flashy Mercedes with tinted window passed by, Syrians would say the car was a ‘shabah.’  It literally means the car was a ‘ghost,’ mysterious and not to be trifled with. The thugs who drove these phantom cars became known as shabiha – the ghosts who worked in the dictatorship’s deep shadows.  

After the fighting started here the Assad government turned the shabiha into a militia. It armed them and sent them to infiltrate, execute and spy on the rebels. Now the shabiha are more feared than Syrian troops. Their evil has become legendary.  

Rebels talk of the shabiha like devils, deadly as the regime’s chemical gas.  But herein lies the danger. 

Engel: Myth vs. truth in the Syrian conflict

Who is really who?
I’m not sure if this house was really owned by any shabiha or their relatives. The owner’s son is accused of being shabiha, but the rebels have no solid proof that he did anything wrong at all. And there’s no proof either that the young man I saw tied up with wires, his eyes covered with a bandana, actually raped any girls.  

Every war has revolutionary justice. Here that justice is carried out in the name of fighting shabiha.  

No one knows exactly how many shabiha work for the regime. If the Assad government falls, the rebels will likely – almost certainly – carry out executions of suspected shabiha.  

A man I spoke to this morning said all shabiha should be executed without mercy, and their property sold and distributed among their victims. The man’s own cousin is among those accused of being shabiha.

CFR.org: What you need to know about the Syria crisis

Slippery slope 
But how will Syrians know when justice is being served or miscarried?  

There’s also a disproportionate number of Alawites, accused of being shabiha. The Alawites are the minority Shiite Muslim sect to which Assad belongs and which has held a disproportionate amount of power since his family came to power in 1970. But the Alawites make up only 10 percent of the population, sowing resentment among the country’s Sunni population, who make up the majority of Syria’s 22 million people. 

PhotoBlog: Who are the Syrian rebels? 

Syrians need to prepare for the aftermath if the Assad regime falls. Atrocities that could be considered war crimes have been committed in this country and Syrians should rightly demand that the perpetrators be held accountable.  

But Syrians must be careful not to engage in a murderous campaign of hunting ghosts. The shabiha are real, but they can’t be everywhere.

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Updated at 2:00 p.m. ET: As more Syrian rebels flooded into the country's capital, President Bashar Assad had reportedly left Damascus and was directing the response to the assassination of three top lieutenants on Thursday.

A day after a bombing killed his brother-in-law and two other key military figures, Assad was in the coastal city of Latakia, opposition sources and a Western diplomat told Reuters.

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"Our information is that he is at his palace in Latakia and that he may have been there for days," said a senior opposition figure, who declined to be named, according to Reuters. 

Latakia province is home to several towns inhabited by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect.  

On Thursday evening, Syrian television showed Assad swearing in Brig. Gen. Fahed Jassim el Friej as defense minister, the president's first public appearance since the stunning bomb attack on a crisis meeting of defense and security chiefs.

U.S. State Department officials said Thursday afterthey were not sure  

A diplomat, who is following events in Syria, told Reuters: "Everyone is looking now at how well Assad can maintain the command structure. The killings yesterday were a huge blow, but not fatal."

NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin answers your questions about Syria

Meanwhile, rebel fighters streamed into Damascus convinced that they could take over the capital and isolate the government. 

"Taking Damascus will be a morale blow to Assad's regime," Ali Bakran, a commander of a Free Syrian Army brigade that operates out Jabal al-Zawiya, told NBC News. 

Rebels from his region has sent about 1,000 fighters to Damascus over the last two days, he said. 

Bakran said that once the rebels had taken control of the capital, they planned seize state radio and television stations -- a huge symbolic and tactical victory for anti-Assad forces. 

PhotoBlog: Who are the Syrian rebels?

"Once we take over the TV and radio stations, the army will collapse," Bakran said.

'We will not stop'
And after Damascus, the rebels planned to march to Latakia, where Assad was reportedly staying, to "finish the job," Bakran added. 

"We will continue our work, we will not stop, not after all this blood has been shed, not after all those innocents' deaths," he told NBC News.

Syrian rebels have kept up pressure following Wednesday's assassinations in Damascus, fighting loyalist troops within sight of the presidential palace and near government headquarters, residents said. 

Residents said there was no let-up in the heaviest fighting -- now in its fifth day -- to hit the Syrian capital in a 16-month revolt against Assad, whose family has dominated the pivotal Arab country for 42 years.

The battles encroached within sight of the presidential palace, near the security headquarters where Wednesday's emergency meeting was held, with videos showing clouds of smoke rising over the skyline.

The U.N. Security Council put off a scheduled vote on a Syria resolution until Thursday and President Barack Obama telephoned President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally, to try to persuade Moscow to drop support for him.

Nevertheless, Russia and China vetoed the resolution threatening sanctions against Syria.

The bombing that killed Assad's brother-in-law, defense minister and a top general triggered fierce army retaliation with artillery unleashed on rebels massed in several districts and armed mostly with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. 

A video from overnight in Damascus' neighborhood of Sayed Zainab shows a makeshift clinic in a house, with blankets and medical supplies strewn all over the floor and a man shouting directions on a megaphone as men carry in mutilated bodies on sheets.

Some of the bodies were blackened, perhaps from a blast or a fire. Others were blown apart apparently by high explosive.

Residents in the Midan and Kafr Souseh districts reported constant blasts and heavy gunfire as helicopter gunships buzzed overhead. 

"The shelling did not stop all night. Shelling could be heard in all the city. It was loud. There were also sounds of clashes. Not many people are venturing out. I can't even find a taxi, so I'm waiting for somebody to pick us up," a resident in Damascus told Reuters, speaking by telephone.

PhotoBlog: Behind Syrian rebel lines

"Everyone in the neighborhood is arming themselves. Some with machineguns, some with shotguns. Some even just with knives. And whoever doesn't have anything just tries to stay awake and stay alert as much as they can," said another resident, speaking by phone from the Midan area. 

"I can't even tell you what is going on outside because I've shuttered the windows and locked the doors. I just hear every now and then the gunfire, it's like it's in the room." 

Many Damascenes were reported fleeing pockets of fighting. 

"We've had a lot of people come in from last evening, from other neighborhoods like refugees, and people gather around them to hear what they've seen. My neighbor tries to see if they have relatives here or see if there is someone that can host them for a while," said a woman contacted by telephone.

Checkpoints around Midan and the ancient walled Old City of Damascus had been removed, residents said. It was unclear if security forces had changed tactics to stop rebels targeting soldiers, or if it was a temporary move in the heat of battle.  

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TRIPOLI, Lebanon – It only takes a two-minute stroll down Syria Street to see why so many people are so worried about what might happen next in Lebanon.

A hole punched through the wall of the mosque by a rocket or mortar shell, smoke-blackened masonry, shops and apartments bearing the pockmarks of fierce gun battles.

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Syria Street is the aptly named thoroughfare that separates rival factions in Lebanon’s second city.

For much of the past week, the two sides have been waging a mini-civil war.

It is a direct spill over from the chaos in neighboring Syria.

Photos: Violence on the streets of Tripoli

One side of the street is home to a hard-line Sunni Muslim militia who run guns to rebels across the border.

“President Assad is trying to destroy us,” says Sheik Bilal Masri, by way of explanation. “They cause trouble here to take the pressure of them in Damascus.”

We meet a small group of his men. They are well-armed and apparently spoiling for a fight.

Not many yards away, posters of Syria’s President Bashar Assad striking stern military poses adorn walls on the other side of the street.

Here the people share Assad’s Alawite faith and, it seems, the same determination to defend his regime.

“No one wants a civil war in Lebanon,” a local Alawite leader tells me.  “But everyone should be warned: There will be repercussion for anyone who tries to meddle in Syria.”

Conflict along Syria Street is nothing new. But the outside world began to take notice on Monday when for the first time in four years, gun battles broke out on the streets of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

2 killed, 18 hurt as Syria conflict spills over into Lebanon

It was a brief glimpse back into the abyss for a nation scarred by years of civil strife.

In 2005, Syrian troops were forced to withdrawal from Lebanon, but Damascus is still a big player in the fractured politics of a country that sees rival Muslim and Christian sects share power in a set of uneasy alliances.

Syria’s most powerful friend here is Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group that probably holds the key to whether Lebanon survives in one piece.

Inside Syria rebel stronghold: 'The city is on mute' 

Its heartland in the south of Beirut has been tense, but so far its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has kept his forces out of the fray.

But for how long?

The fatal shooting of two Sunni clerics followed by the kidnapping of Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Syria shows how unpredictable events have become.

A message to Assad? War games held near border

For more than two decades, Timur Goksel has watched events in Lebanon. Once of the U.N. Mission here, he now lectures at the American University in Beirut.

He tells me the country has rarely felt so dangerous.

“I hope I am wrong because this is scary. If the faction leaders lose control of these young guys with the guns then we’re in trouble,” he said.

Their bloody history has taught the Lebanese to be a fatalistic people.

“The country is at boiling point,” another seasoned observer told me with a shrug.  “What is coming will be very bad.”

 

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