WORLD : American U. of Beirut Reopens

The American University of Beirut reopened today after being closed six months because of fighting between Syrian and Christian forces.

It was the longest shutdown of the university since Lebanon’s civil war began in 1975.

“The whole family’s back,” said Radwan Mawlawi, spokesman for the university, which once was the most prestigious in the Middle East but was swept by terrorism after the war.

Syrian troops and Lebanese police checked students’ identity cards at the three gates into the campus overlooking the Mediterranean. It was not known how many of the university’s 5,000 students, most of them Lebanese, returned.