He summoned his supporters to Beirut last week for a counterdemonstration, which drew hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites and other pro-Hizballah Lebanese into the capital's Riad al .
At the other end of the town Communists staged a counterdemonstration.
When Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, director of national radio and television, called for a counterdemonstration, 100,000 people flooded into the spring sunshine, half of them in chadors.