BEIRUT, May 11  -- Pope Benedict XVI condemned the sectarian fighting. "I beg the Lebanese to end clashes which are leading this country" to the point of no return, he said.

The army deployed across much of Lebanon on Sunday after Hezbollah ceded control of west Beirut but clashes raged on in the north and in the Druze mountains as Arab foreign ministers held crisis talks. Lebanese troops patrolled Beirut on Sunday after Hezbollah fighters pulled back from areas they had seized in deadly gunbattles with supporters of the U.S.-backed government. Heavy clashes between pro and anti-government supporters broke out Sunday in mountain areas in central Lebanon, local New TV reported.  The violence started in mountain village of Aytat in Aley area, and expanded to other villages and then spread out to Chweifatcity where heavy gunfire exchange is taking place, according to the report. The report said automatic rifles and RPGs were used in the battles, and huge sound of explosion could be heard in the area. The fighting was reportedly between the supporters of pro-government Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Druze opposition leader Talal Erslan's gunmen.  local LBC TV reported that  after a phone conversation between Jumblatt and Arslan  came in agreement to hand the control of mountain area over to the army to end the current violence. Civil peace and halting the destruction are paramount," Jumblatt told Lebanese television. He also asked his supporters to lay down their weapons. Arslan also called on opposition fighters to halt the fighting . Shortly after the appeals the army began deploying in the area.  Earlier on Sunday the army had moved into the northern city of Tripoli where fierce overnight sectarian clashes had left one woman dead at at least five wounded. So far, 38 people have been killed in clashes that began Wednesday, the worst sectarian violence since the civil war. Overnight, there were fierce clashes in the north, particularly in the city of Tripoli where pro-government supporters exchanged rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine gun fire with opposition followers, security officials said. One woman was killed. The clashes were over by morning when the Lebanese army deployed on the streets to separate the warring factions.

Calm returned a day after Siniora placed the implementation of two government decisions in the army's hands: to shut down Hezbollah's electronic surveillance operation at Beirut's international airport and a vast land-line telephone network. The military, in a statement, overturned the government's plans. It reinstated the head of airport security fired over the existence of the spy system and left the phone lines under Hezbollah's control.  ``This was probably an inevitable moment, when Hezbollah felt it had to show the government the real balance of power between them,'' Rami Khoury.  Beirut's streets were largely deserted Sunday, a day off in Lebanon. Many roads remained blocked, including the one to the airport, by the ongoing civil disobedience campaign of the opposition . In the western Beirut neighborhood of Karakol Druse, which saw heavy fighting Thursday, a man swept glass outside his shop. A gaping hole from a rocket propelled grenade and bullet holes marked the facade of a normally busy bakery, now closed.  There were few signs of gunmen openly carrying weapons, save for small knots of Hezbollah allies from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party sitting outside the Economy Ministry in one seaside district.  On Beirut's normally bustling seaside corniche, workers outside five-star hotels cleaned blackened streets scarred by burning tires.

Arab League foreign ministers meanwhile held emergency talks on Lebanon in Cairo in the absence of Syria's top diplomat, Arab League urged: "In view of the danger of the situation in Lebanon, the council of ministers sends out an urgent appeal for an immediate end to violence in Mount Lebanon (Druze regions) and other areas,"  Dijbouti's Foreign Minister Mahmud Ali Yussuf, who was chairing the session, told fellow ministers that "a number of steps and measures to resolve the situation in Lebanon have been put forward." He urged the different factions in Lebanon to "exercise restraint and cooperate with Arab endeavours," stressing that an Arab plan to resolve the crisis "is the only initiative on the table." That initiative calls for the election of Lebanese army chief General Michel Sleiman as president, the establishment of a national unity government and the drafting of a new electoral law. The opposition pulled back its militants from Beirut after the army revoked the government's decisions and deployed in the affected areas. Many Lebanese, including cabinet ministers, observed a minute of silence on Sunday for the victims of the violence, heeding a call by embattled Prime Minister Fuad Siniora who described Hezbollah's power grab as an armed coup. Syrian official daily Al-Baath said on Sunday that Hezbollah had foiled a US-planned coup to seize control of Lebanon.  "The Americans launched a pre-emptive strike against opposition nationalist forces, starting with the (Hezbollah) resistance, and attempted a Washington-planned coup but were taken aback by the opposition, which restored order in Lebanon," it said.  The White House welcomed the lessening of violence in Beirut but warned that "our concerns regarding Hezbollah are unchanged."  "They continue to be a destabilising force there with the backing of their supporters, Iran and Syria," US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

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Hezbollah and its allies began withdrawing their gunmen here in the capital on Saturday evening, raising hopes for a political settlement after four days of street battles .Hezbollah and its allies will end all armed presence in Beirut after the Lebanese army overturned government measures against the group, an opposition statement said on Saturday. "The Lebanese opposition will end all armed presence in Beirut so that the capital will be in the hands of the army," the statement said. - Earlier The Lebanese army overturned on Saturday two government measures against Hezbollah that had triggered the group to take control of Beirut, and the military urged gunmen to withdraw from the streets.  The army said in a statement it was keeping the head of the security at Beirut airport in his post and that it would handle Hezbollah's communications network in a way "that would not harm public interest and the security of the resistance". Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said earlier on Saturday that he was putting the two issues to the army for them to decide. They have also requested from the government to cancel these 2 decisions taken.

On Saturday afternoon, after another day of sporadic violence, the army offered to broker a face-saving solution by promising to "investigate" Hezbollah's controversial private telephone network without harming the group's integrity. It also proposed to retain the current chief of airport security, a Hezbollah ally whom the government had tried to fire. That proposal