Baalbek - Lebanon braced itself for more unrest after at least 50 people were killed or wounded in fierce fighting between followers of the Shia cleric, Sheikh Sobhi Tufaili, and army troops in eastern Lebanon. State television did not specify the number of dead or wounded in the clashes, which witnesses said involved machine-guns and rockets.
The clashes broke out after Lebanese troops moved to take control of a school run by proIranian Hizbollah guerrillas which the cleric and his armed followers had occupied in the eastern Bekaa Valley town of Baalbek, 70 km east of Beirut.