BEIRUT: Senior Druze and Christian religious leaders urged calm in the run-up to Ashura ceremonies Tuesday, following escalating tensions between Sunnis and Shiites.

The Druze spiritual head, Sheikh Naim Hasan, issued a statement that addressed “the return of worrying, tense rhetoric in recent days,” and called for “an absolute distancing” from language that could further inflame the situation.

The tensions picked up over the weekend in the wake of statements by a Sidon-based Salafist sheikh who claimed that Hezbollah’s Al-Manar Television had aired comments by a Shiite sheikh against Aisha, one of the wives of the Prophet Mohammad.

Also, Sunni residents of Khaldeh, south of Beirut, clashed with Shiites during an Ashura procession, also over the weekend.

Hasan said he contacted the mufti of the Republic, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, and Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan, the deputy head of the Higher Shiite Council, to discuss the situation, urging a return to national dialogue to alleviate the situation.

Separately, the Catholic Bishop of Sidon, Elie Haddad, warned against the sectarian tensions, saying “our security is threatened, and the threat has reached Sidon, through messages, which each group interprets the way it wishes.”

“As for our interpretation, it is this: outsiders are trying to work against our safety and security, and these attempts will fail, God willing,” said Haddad, speaking Sunday evening during a mass in Sidon.

“The important thing is for us to distance ourselves from partisan and sectarian rhetoric, because it threatens peace,” he said.

Haddad also praised recent efforts to boost coexistence between Christians and Muslims in the city, saluting a local priest and Muslim residents, “who have encouraged a return” by Christians to the Sidon area.