BEIRUT: Politicians, businessmen and civil society representatives from Beirut gathered on Friday to demand that the capital be “free of weapons” in the wake of deadly clashes in Burj Abi Haidar earlier in the week.

Participants at the “Beirut Development Conference” condemned the clashes between elements of Hizbullah and the Association of the Charitable Islamic Projects, a Sunni faction known as Al-Ahbash, which killed three individuals.

“We reject [the dishonoring] of the capital through the spread of weapons and gunmen in neighborhoods and between homes, which when accompanied by popular tensions raised by provocative political and media discourse lead to armed violence that threatens people’s lives,” the conference statement said.

The clashes also left a number of residences, mosques and cars burned in the neighborhoods of Burj Abi Haidar, Mazraa and Basta.

The mufti of the republic, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, held Friday prayers at the Basta al-Fawqa Mosque, which sustained some damage during the clashes. He decried the violence and said that neglecting the people’s security was “a huge crime, under which tensions are instigated and chaos is spread.”

Beirut’s Mayor Bilal Hamad along with a number of the capital’s MPs were among those on hand for the prayers.

“Nobody is pleased by the wounds that Beirut has suffered,” Qabbani added.

The mufti said that the tension and violence did not reflect sectarian or religious problems, whether between Shiites and Sunnis, or between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon.

“However, political differences are legal under our democratic system, and should be limited to politics and politicians,” Qabbani said, urging media outlets to tone down their political rhetoric.

“It is our duty to unite our ranks and to solve differences between brothers in the one nation,” he added.

“National unity is the backbone of our nation and our safety valve, and the Israeli enemy and other sides with ambitions in our country will only benefit from our internal disputes,” he said.

The mufti added that the Dar al-Fatwa would renovate the damaged mosque.

Separately, participants at the Beirut Development Conference stressed that security forces should assume their responsibilities and intervene firmly to arrest assailants rather “than await a ceasefire to intervene later as a separation or arbitrary force between fighting groups.”

“We reject imposing security through compromises as well as the formation of committees between fighting groups to coordinate security measures [on the ground] similarly to the [1975-90] Civil War experience,” the statement added.

The participants also demanded that Cabinet take the necessary disciplinary measures against officers who “failed to assume their duty in protecting people’s lives and properties.”

“We heard that these weapons will not be used against internal parties, but this is the third time that they were used, and what is even worse is that the incident is an introduction to” further unrest, Beirut MP Ammar Houry said at the conference, criticizing Hizbullah.

He appeared to be referring to violence in January in the southern suburbs of Beirut, when a protest over electricity cuts degenerated into shots being fired at the army, and the civil strife of May 2008, which killed nearly a dozen people in the capital.

Fears of Sunni-Shiite strife rose after Western media reports said an impending indictment by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating former Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder would indict rogue Hizbullah members.

Hizbullah has recently expressed its rejection of cooperating with the UN-backed tribunal, which the party has condemned as an “Israeli project.”

Separately, an official of the Islamic Labor Front called for “renouncing disputes and hatred among Muslims,” highlighting the necessity of easing religious and sectarian tensions.

Sheikh Sharif Totio called on politicians to deal “wisely” and responsibly with the events.

On Friday, President Michel Sleiman discussed at his summer residence in Beiteddine palace with head of the Internal Security Forces Major General Ashraf Rifi measures taken to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents.

No arrests have been made in the wake of the Burj Abi Haidar clashes.