BEIRUT, Lebanon - Beirut residents are living in constant fear that Lebanon could plunge back into civil strife after deadly street clashes last month pitted Sunni Muslims against Shias.

“Everyone fears an outbreak of civil war despite the return to calm, and the residents are ready to bear arms,” warned Hussam Nagi, who lives in the mostly Sunni residential neighbourhood of Tariq Jdideh.

The area saw violent clashes between opposition and government supporters more than a week ago that left a total of seven people dead and about 300 others wounded across the country.

In Tariq Jdideh, the confrontations took on a confessional aspect as Sunni government supporters fought fierce street battles with Shia opposition activists.

The confrontations spread fears that the country could revert to scenes of anarchy and violence last witnessed during the 1975-1990 civil war.

“The deployment of the Lebanese army is important” since it imposed an overnight curfew that ended the deadly confrontations on January 25, said Hassan Arnaout, a Sunni resident of Tariq Jdideh.

“Older people fear an outbreak of civil war because they have already known its bitter taste,” he said. “But the young people are ready to carry weapons to defend their neighbourhoods if armed outsiders keep coming in.”

Nagi said “the prevailing calm is not a sign that everything is back to normal. Many people don’t go out at night, and there is less traffic than usual in daytime.”

Nagi witnessed clashes, which erupted at the Beirut Arab University campus between student followers of the Shia parties Hezbollah and Amal and supporters of the Future Current movement of Sunni leader MP Saad Hariri.

“I helped Shia students get out of the campus to return to the southern suburbs,” a bastion of the Shia party Hezbollah, he said.

Hezbollah, the powerful party that fought a 34-day war against Israel last summer, spearheads the Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition which on December 1 began a sit-in outside government offices in Beirut in a bid to bring down the Western-backed cabinet of Sunni Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

Marwan Qassab, who runs a coffee shop near the Beirut Arab University, complained that “the number of customers has dwindled since the recent events because people are scared to stay out for a long time.”

The university was closed after the violence and ordered to remain shut until Monday. (AFP)