Man Threatens Beirut Bank with Grenade Over Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, March 29, 2003

Man Threatens Beirut Bank with Grenade Over Iraq

Police arrested a man armed with a hand grenade who broke into a branch of HSBC bank in Beirut on Saturday demanding to go to Baghdad to fight Americans waging war on Iraq, security sources said.

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Police arrested a man armed with a hand grenade who broke into a branch of HSBC bank in Beirut on Saturday demanding to go to Baghdad to fight Americans waging war on Iraq, security sources said.

"He wanted to go to Baghdad to fight the Americans," one security source told Reuters.

"It is over," he added. "The minister of the interior...went into the bank and negotiated with him and convinced him to surrender."

He said all the bank employees were released before the man surrendered and was turned over to police.

Witnesses said dozens of security forces had surrounded the bank, which was open when the man broke in. They blocked off traffic in the busy commercial area before a SWAT team arrived.

Bank officials declined immediate comment, and phone calls to the Hamra branch where the man was holed up went unanswered.

The break-in came just days after a small explosion damaged the outer wall of the British Council in Beirut, the first attack on a Western institution in Lebanon since the start of the U.S.-led war on Iraq 10 days ago.

Anti-American and British sentiment -- already high over perceived US support for Israel against a Palestinian uprising -- has soared in Lebanon since the war began. British forces are taking part in the war alongside American troops.

Source: agencies

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