Fighting between pro- and anti-government factions jumped to Lebanon's north Monday, but a grim calm hung over the nearly empty streets of Beirut _ a capital crippled by roadblocks, suspicion and fear.

As black-clad Shiite militants of Hezbollah carried their latest dead to burial, so did the families and friends of civilians caught in the middle of combat that has routed Sunni factions supporting the Western-allied government from Muslim west Beirut.

More than 50 people were confirmed dead since fighting erupted Wednesday _ first in Beirut, then in the mountains overlooking the city and on Monday in the northern city of Tripoli. It is the worst sectarian violence to wrack Lebanon since a 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

That war killed 150,000 people and laid waste to many parts of Beirut, leaving the city divided into ethnic and religious districts deeply suspicious of one another, and the new fighting has torn open old wounds.

"They abandoned their cause against Israel and have come to kill us," Wadad Abdel Nasser Shamaa, a 27-year-old Sunni, said of Hezbollah's militiamen. Her brother, Mohammed, was killed Thursday night when Hezbollah and its allies swept through the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Tarik Jadideh.

Their father, Abdel-Nasser Shamaa, 47, a vegetable vendor, said he once sympathized with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and even pasted a picture of the Shiite cleric to his bedroom mirror. He wants to know why his son was killed in what he called indiscriminate shooting by Hezbollah.

He said 22-year-old Mohammed was not a combatant. He said his son was visiting his parents when fighting erupted and he rushed off to get to his pregnant wife.

"Just as he walked out the door there was a burst of gunfire, several bullets hit our building," Shamaa said. The shooting was so heavy that he had to crawl on the ground to move his son. "I was soaked in his blood."

Outside his home, a small black and white poster announced the death of Mohammed Khayr Abdel-Nasser Shamaa, bearing the words "betrayed martyr."

Still, the father refused an offer from the Future movement, led by pro-government Sunni leader Saad Hariri, to pay for his son's burial and to wrap his coffin in the group's banner. Instead, Lebanon's national flag draped the coffin.

Shamaa said he didn't want to take sides, stressing that he still respects both Nasrallah and Hariri. "In the end we are ... Muslims," he said.

His wife, Sana Shamaa, 41, agreed. "He's gone and no one can bring him back _ not Nasrallah nor Hariri. I raised him for 22 years and he died with a bullet."

More army troops took up positions in Beirut seeking to keep rival groups apart, and supporters of the Hezbollah-led opposition kept their guns out of sight. But the Shiite fighters still stood watch, making clear who was in charge.

Near a mound of sand blocking the road to Beirut's airport, fighters sat in the shade on plastic chairs sipping black Arabic coffee from plastic cups. One was clearly a Hezbollah fighter, wore a khaki cap and held a walkie-talkie. Parked near them was a black SUV, its license plates covered with a cloth.

"We will stay here until the Sayed tells what to do," said one young man, referring to Nasrallah. "We have no idea what will happen next," added the man, a member of the Hezbollah-allied Amal Movement who identified himself only as Ali.

Beirut remained quiet, and fighting between Druse factions in the mountains outside the city also subsided. But heavy combat was reported in Tripoli, the country's second biggest city.

In Tripoli's Bab el-Tabaneh district, about 25 to 30 Sunni fighters armed with AK-47 assault rifles exchanged fire with Alawites in the neighboring Jabal Mohsen area. Alawites are members of a small offshoot of Shiite Islam. Continued...