Twelve thousand Syrian soldiers have been policing West Beirut and its predominantly Shiite southern suburbs for more than three years.

Battles were reported from Beirut's predominantly Shiite Muslim southern suburbs to the ancient city of Baalbek, 50 miles to the east.

Those regions are the Bekaa, Lebanon's eastern valley, and Beirut's predominantly Muslim Shiite southern suburbs.

The Israelis had braced for heavy attacks to avenge a car bombing on Wednesday that killed three people in a Shiite suburb of Beirut.

In the predominantly Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut, the fundamentalists of the Party of God still have the upper hand.

In Beirut, for example, the scale of destruction in the southern Shiite suburbs is breathtaking, but the rest of the city remains largely untouched.

Simultaneously, troops entered the predominantly Muslim Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut.

They steered clear of the predominantly Shiite southern suburbs of the city.

Four people, including two children, were wounded when bombs went astray and slammed into the predominantly Shiite suburbs south of the city.

In the hard-hit Shiite suburbs south of Beirut, Hezbollah supporters fanned out to assess war damage.