Lebanon’s Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh announced his resignation on Sunday after a mob attacked the Danish consulate in Beirut in riots sparked by controversial Prophet Mohammed cartoons.Almost 30 people were injured as furious crowds stormed and set ablaze the building housing the Danish consulate, despite the presence of riot police who had initially used tear gas and batons to keep protestors at bay.

"I submitted my resignation to the government after criticisms were raised," Sabeh said after an extraordinary cabinet meeting.He said he had refused to give security forces the order to fire on the protestors because "I did not want to be responsible for any carnage.

BBC news, The Lebanese government has apologised to Denmark after protesters ransacked its Beirut embassy, plunging troubled Lebanon into fresh political turmoil. The mission was attacked on Sunday by Muslims angry at cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish paper. The interior minister quit after the attack and the commander of the army has offered to step down.

The Beirut government has condemned the cartoons, but also denounced the violence in which one person died. "The riots harmed Lebanon’s reputation and its civilised image and the noble aim of the demonstration. The cabinet apologises to Denmark," said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi. Correspondents say violence took on a sectarian dimension as Muslim extremists took over the streets in Ashrafieh, the Christian neighbourhood where the mission is located, and went on a three-hour rampage, wrecking property.

BY Elias Chamoun, Can the Lebanese Christians be granted their own independent state by partitioning Lebanon between them and the Lebanese Muslims under international law?

On the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, lies a small country that many used to refer to as being the jewel of the Mediterranean. A country that was once considered to be the Switzerland of the East, and whose capital, Beirut, used to be called the Paris of the East. That country is Lebanon. There, was a model government and society of how Jews, Christians, and Muslims could all cooperate and peacefully coexist together. When taking a closer look at Lebanon one can notice something very different from all the other Near Eastern countries; the presence of a large Christian community (in proportion to the population) in a country surrounded by a sea of Islam. Descendent from the Phoenicians, the Christian ethnic group is the oldest community in Lebanon and compromises almost half of the country