BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Lebanon's judiciary began interrogating 200 rioters who wrecked havoc in a Christian Beirut neighborhood during a protest against slandering Islam.
Security sources said 77 Syrians, 42 Palestinians believed to belong to the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--General Command, 25 stateless Bedouins and 38 Lebanese Muslim Sunni fundamentalists were among the arrested rioters.
Christian and Muslim politicians and religious leaders charged that "plants" infiltrated the demonstration, which was supposed to be a peaceful protest against slandering Prophet Mohammed through cartoons in which he was depicted as a terrorist.
Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa submitted his resignation at an emergency meeting held Sunday night, following accusations of official negligence and poor security preparations to prevent possible outbreak of riots by angry Muslim fundamentalists.
The angry demonstrators torched the Danish embassy in the Christian neighborhood of Ashrafieh, destroyed cars and windows of shops as well as the windows of a nearby church.
Anti-Syria politicians, including Druze overlord Walid Jumblatt, accused Syria for being responsible of sending the "plants" into the demonstration in an attempt to incite sectarian strife in Lebanon.
The Lebanese government, whose emergency meeting dragged on till the early hours of Monday morning, expressed reservation on a request by Minister of Social Affairs, Nayla Moawwad, to lodge a complaint against Syria with the Security Council on charges of interfering in Lebanese affairs.
The government decided to await for the results of the investigation into Sunday's riots before acting.
Syria, which was forced to pull out from Lebanon in April 2005 under tremendous local and international pressures, is accused by many Lebanese of maintaining covert intelligence in Lebanon and using its local allies to stir chaos and carry out a series of assassinations that targeted anti-Syrian politicians and journalists in the past months.
The riots came a day after thousands of demonstrators in neighboring Damascus set the Danish embassy on fire to protest against the cartoons slandering the Prophet Mohammed.
