Beirut, Jan 20 (AFP/APP):Lebanon’s under-fire president is set to meet Monday with top security officials to discuss rare violence over the weekend that left hundreds wounded in the protest-hit country.
For two nights in a row, demonstrators angered at delays in forming a government have lobbed stones, firecrackers and street signs at riot police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets to clear a flashpoint road leading to parliament.
Early Monday afternoon, Michel Aoun will be joined by the caretaker ministers of the interior and defence as well as the chiefs of the military and security agencies to discuss the crisis, his office said after the most violent weekend in three months of protests.
The meeting will touch on “security developments” in a country rocked since October 17 by unprecedented protests against a political class deemed incompetent, corrupt and responsible for an ever-deepening economic crisis.
It will also address “measures that need to be taken to preserve peace and stability,” the state-run National News agency (NNA) reported.
The meeting comes after a weekend that saw more than 540 wounded, including protesters and security forces, according to a toll compiled by AFP from figures provided by the Red Cross and Civil Defence.
That figure included people who suffered “breathing difficulties” or “light injuries”, civil defence said.
