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BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanon's long-simmering political crisis erupted into gunfire and explosions Wednesday when a labor strike devolved into clashes between rival Hezbollah and government supporters.
Demonstrators supported by militant Hezbollah protested the U.S.-backed government's economic policies and paralyzed much of Beirut with roadblocks of burning tires. The strike turned violent when both sides began throwing stones at each other, and gunfire and explosions rang out in some areas for brief periods.
The cause of the explosions was not immediately known. There were a few injuries reported, mostly from the stone-throwing.
The clashes threatened to degenerate into an all-out sectarian conflict. Shiite Hezbollah seized the offices of a major Sunni group and the fighting spread to several mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods.
Most Sunnis back Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's government, while Shiites generally support the opposition led by Hezbollah, which the U.S. has labeled a terrorist organization.
The Sunnis' spiritual leader denounced the militant Shiite faction and appealed to the Islamic world to intervene.
"Sunni Muslims in Lebanon have had enough," Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani said in a televised address from his office, demanding an "end to these violations."
In unusually harsh words, he called Hezbollah "armed gangs of outlaws" and called on the group's leaders to withdraw from Beirut's Sunni neighborhoods.
Shiite opposition supporters remained on the streets after sunset, and many of the blocked roads remained closed, indicating that the protest will likely continue at least until Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks at a planned news conference on Thursday.
The standoff between the two sides has lasted 17 months. It's left Lebanon without a head of state since November, when opposition-allied President Emile Lahoud's term ended with the government and the opposition deadlocked on electing a successor.
Tensions reached a new high Tuesday, when the Cabinet said it would remove Beirut airport's security chief over alleged ties to Hezbollah. The militant group and leaders of the 1.2-million-strong Shiite community, believed to be Lebanon's largest sect, rejected the decision, and the airport security chief continued on the job.
Wednesday's strike was called by labor unions after they rejected a government pay-raise offer as insufficient. It was largely confined to Shiite areas that back the opposition.
Striking workers caused the delay or cancellation of dozens of arriving and departing flights at Beirut's airport. Flights resumed later, but the roads to the airport remained closed, trapping scores of arriving passengers in the terminal.
Hezbollah supporters seized two local offices of Sunni parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri's group, security officials said.
Earlier in the day, an Associated Press photographer saw gunmen from Hezbollah and the allied Shiite Amal group controlled by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri shooting toward one of the buildings housing Hariri's Future Movement office. Police also were seen firing toward a building.
A cameraman for Hezbollah's al-Manar television was beaten by a soldier, the station reported. Other news reports said he was hit by stones raining down on protesters. A soldier also was hit in the mouth by a stone.
Two other news photographers were hurt by stones, according to witnesses and television reports.
Earlier in the same area, a stun grenade thrown into a crowd lightly injured three protesters and two soldiers, the state-run National News Agency said. It was not immediately clear who threw the grenade.
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