BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- In polarized Lebanon, flaunting a political leader's poster can be enough to spark a gunfight. So shopkeepers on Beirut's al-Maamoun Street are breathing a little easier now that "poster disarmament" has been declared.

Most of the posters once plastered on Beirut's walls and lampposts have come down by agreement between the main factions of Shiite and Sunni Muslims - part of a broader attempt to ease nearly three years of sectarian and political tensions that almost dragged the country back into civil war.

The move is giving a new look to a city where political posters and banners once greatly outnumbered advertising billboards.

This year, several people were injured in battles that erupted along al-Maamoun Street in Beirut's mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood of Basta. The cause: Someone tore down a portrait of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his son Saad, both Sunni leaders. And last month, two people died in a gunfight between rival Christian groups over the hanging of a political banner in a village in north Lebanon.

"What a relief," Assad Shami, an 80-year-old Shiite barber in Basta, said of the disappearing posters.

"It is a positive step that defuses tensions and eliminates one of the causes of sectarian fights," said Mohammed Halawani, 55, a Sunni grocer.

The Muslim factions took down their posters simultaneously around Beirut at the start of the month, and political graffiti was cleaned off walls. The same deal is being negotiated for the city's suburbs, the airport highway and elsewhere in Lebanon. Some posters in Christian areas also are coming down.

Posters have historically been a marker of political rivalry in this country. During the 1975-90 civil war, they included the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syrian President Hafez Assad, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

All three are now dead, and new factions have taken center stage, raising posters of their leaders and of their lieutenants killed in battles. The Sunni Hariris vied with Sheik Hassan Nasrallah of the Shiite movement Hezbollah. Pictures of Saudi King Abdullah, a Hariri ally, went up to counter portraits of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late Shiite spiritual leader of Iran.

But the ubiquitous portraits have taken on greater weight since 2005, when the country was torn by a power struggle between pro- and anti-Syrian politicians - the former largely Sunni, the latter led by Hezbollah. Since the factions are mostly religion-based, the posters could be seen as claiming power for one group over another.

A poster now gone showed Nasrallah and Shiite Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri over a Quranic verse reading, "Prepare for them with as much might as you can." The verse was intended to rally Muslims against foes in the early days of Islam, but some Sunnis saw it as calling for battle against them.

Many portraits of the Hariris carried the slogan, "Lebanon First," a dig at Hezbollah's ties to Syria and Iran.

In May, the Western-backed, anti-Syrian government tried to rein in Hezbollah, which responded by unleashing its gunmen. Gunbattles killed 81 people. To avert outright civil war, the factions agreed to create a national unity government, and embraced poster disarmament.

Not all the posters have gone - the deal does not include Christian areas - but for perhaps the first time in decades, Beirut's streets are not a jungle of divisive posters and banners.

Instead, pro-unity slogans are in vogue on al-Maamoun Street. "No to strife among Muslims" and "Yes to Muslim unity" says a large poster that replaced a portrait of the Hariris.

Shopkeeper Jamal Mekkawi is skeptical that peace can grow from poster removal. What's needed, he said, is a reconciliation meeting between Sunnis and Shiites - something that's still being negotiated.

And with parliamentary elections a few months away, no one expects the portraits to stay down for good. Meanwhile, political loyalties still are advertised inside homes and shops - Nasrallah's picture hangs in Shami's barbershop.

The key is to keep those loyalties from spilling into street violence, said Kamal Khashab, a 70-year-old Shiite grocer.

"Faith is in the heart, not in street banners," he said.

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