50,000 Mourners March for Khomeini in Beirut

The drum-like thud of some 50,000 Shiite Muslim mourners beating their chests reverberated in Beirut on Monday as they marched in a symbolic funeral for the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“The glory of Islam has gone. Our back is broken now. . . . Our enemies are rejoicing. We have become orphans,” said a sobbing Shiite Muslim cleric in the procession led by white-turbaned clergymen and hundreds of heavily armed gunmen and Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

“We cry not with tears but with blood!” mourners chanted during the five-hour march through battle-scarred streets. “Our wound will bleed forever.”

Black-clad women and children, praying and weeping, kissed Khomeini’s posters.

Fighters of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah (Party of God) lined rooftops and searched cars and pedestrians to prevent any attack on mourners.

The crowd marched from the southern suburbs--a bastion of Hezbollah militants and an area where at least some of the 17 Westerners abducted in Lebanon are believed held--to the Iranian Embassy in West Beirut.

Muslim radio and TV broadcast verses from the Koran and flags flew at half-staff on the second of three days of national mourning declared by acting Premier Salim Hoss, a Sunni Muslim. Banks, shops and public institutions closed in southern Lebanon, Muslim West Beirut and the Bekaa Valley in the east.

Before the march, Christian gunners exchanged fire with Syrian troops and their Muslim militia allies. Shells crashed into Muslim West Beirut and scores of hills southeast of the capital. Other shells fell on Christian East Beirut, killing two people and wounding 14, as well as on Christian-held ports.