Huge crowd gathers in Beirut for opposition rally

BEIRUT, Dec 1 (Reuters) Tens of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese poured into central Beirut today for a Hezbollah-led protest aimed at bringing down the Western-backed government, which has vowed it will not yield to the pressure.

Pro-Syrian Hezbollah and its allies have called on Lebanese from across the country to take part in the opposition protest. It is due to start at 1830 hrs IST and will be followed by an indefinite sit-in near the government offices.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has branded the government a US puppet.

Large numbers of security forces, backed by armoured troop carriers, deployed in central Beirut where a big turnout was expected, and at the capital's entrances.

Scores of soldiers, using barbed wire and metal barriers, cordoned off the complex housing the government's offices in the downtown area. Less than 30 metres away, the crowds gathered, waving red-and-white Lebanese flags under banners demanding a government of national unity.

''We want a clean government,'' one banner read.

Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem said the protests would not end until Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's cabinet fell.

''This government will not take Lebanon to the abyss. We have several steps if this government does not respond but I tell them you will not be able to rule Lebanon with an American administration,'' he told Hezbollah's al-Manar television.

Christian opposition leader and Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun was scheduled to address the protest. Hezbollah has repeatedly criticised Siniora's cabinet over what it says was its failure to back Hezbollah during a July-August war with Israel.

''We're here to bring down the government. We, the resistance, don't want any influence from the United States,'' opposition supporter Najwa Bouhamdan, 41, told Reuters.

''We're protesting so that the government knows that nobody wants Siniora,'' said Hamzi Mesheh, 18, a university student from Baalbek, who had a Lebanese flag tied around his head.

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