BEIRUT, Aug 25: Lebanese soldiers were deployed in force on Wednesday in tension-gripped Beirut ahead of the funerals of three people killed in a clash between the Shia-based Hezbollah and Al Ahbash, a Sunni group.

The clash broke out late on Tuesday in mainly Muslim west Beirut's district of Burj Abi Haidar, a stronghold of parliament speaker Nabih Berri's Amal movement, which is allied with Hezbollah.

Bullet casings and broken glass covered the streets of Burj Abi Haidar on the morning after the fighting, as shopkeepers swept away rubble from their stores and most local residents stayed indoors.

Cars parked in the vicinity were also badly damaged.

Supporters of the two movements — both close to Damascus — used shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns in four hours of fighting that also left 10 people wounded.

Two victims have been identified as Hezbollah members Mohammed Fawaz, the Hezbollah's representative to Burj Abi Haidar, and Ali Jawad. The third victim was named as Ahmed Omayrat of Al Ahbash.

Witnesses said the clash began as an argument between Fawaz and supporters of the Al Ahbash over a parking space near a mosque popular among the group's supporters.

The violence near the mosque broke out around the time of Iftar.

In northern Lebanon, a 26-year-old woman was wounded as two grenade explosions shook the port city of Tripoli overnight, just hours after the clash in Beirut. The woman was in stable condition.

Tuesday's clashes marked the worst violence to grip Beirut since May 2008, when 100 people were killed in battles between supporters of a Hezbollah-led alliance and those of Lebanon's pro-Western prime minister, Saad Hariri.

Hezbollah and Al Ahbash, which describes itself as a charity promoting Islamic culture, said in a joint statement that Tuesday's “regrettable incident was isolated and did not have any political or confessional basis”. TRAFFIC DISPUTE:

The most serious fighting in Beirut since 2008 appears to have been touched off by a traffic dispute that escalated into deadly, hours-long street battles, according to witnesses.

It was not clear why the fighting intensified so dramatically, but tensions between the Sunni and Shia communities have been running high recently amid reports that some Hezbollah members will be indicted in the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, once the country's top Sunni politician.

Abdul Qadir al Fakhani, a spokesman for Al Ahbash, and several other witnesses said there was a commotion outside the Bourj Abu Haider mosque about 20 minutes before the gunbattles began, with men fighting over a car.

“They were shouting and yelling insults at each other,” Al Fakhani said. “Then a group from Hezbollah approached the mosque and they just kept coming. We were astonished,” he said.

Within 20 minutes, both sides apparently gathered reinforcements and the street battles began.

Hezbollah did not comment beyond a joint statement issued by the two groups late on Tuesday saying the incident resulted from a “personal dispute and has no political or sectarian background”.

On Wednesday morning, cleaning crews were sweeping the chunks of concrete that had been blown off the mosque by bullets and grenades. At least one gunman holding an AK-47 assault rifle had taken up position in a building across from the mosque.

Two other witnesses and a Lebanese soldier independently corroborated Al Fakhani's account of a traffic dispute preceding the violence.

Local media also reported similar witness accounts.

More than 1,500 people took part in funerals for the victims on Wednesday.

In the southern village of Kfar Fila, some 1,000 people attended the burial of Hezbollah official Ali al-Jawad. Hezbollah members in black uniforms and red berets carried the coffin, wrapped in a yellow Hezbollah flag, on their shoulders. —Agencies

In Beirut, several hundred turned out to mourn Ahmad Jamal Omeirat, the Al Ahbash follower. Friends at the funeral said he was just 17 years old. Al-Fakhani, the movement's spokesman, said Omeirat was a student who was killed by a gunshot to the chest.—Agencies