WORLD_ SYRIA_ Syrian civil war threatens to tear Lebanon to pieces

Syrian civil war threatens to tear Lebanon to pieces

Friday 22 November 2013
heraldscotland.com

I've just spent the best part of the past fortnight on the Lebanon- Syria border.

Driving back to Beirut on Tuesday, the double suicide bombing that blew up the Iranian embassy in the city's southern suburbs was just the latest in a series of events that convinces me the Syrian civil war is spreading into Lebanon like never before. Even before this latest attack, anyone in any doubt about the war's creeping presence need only pass along the main thoroughfare in Lebanon's second largest city, Tripoli, called ­appropriately enough Syria Street.

Here, you could be forgiven for thinking that you have crossed the border to the frontlines around Syrian cities such as Homs, Hama or Aleppo. In two of Tripoli's largest neighbourhoods, the sectarian divisions of the Syrian civil war have long been playing themselves out. On one side in the largely Sunni neighbourhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh lies the stronghold of those who support Syrian opposition fighters. In the other neighbouring Alawite enclave of Jabal Mohsen meanwhile are those who back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Pockmarked with bullet and shell holes from the regular firefights then ensue here, some buildings have massive blue-tarpaulins strung across the street to hide residents from rival predatory snipers. It's said that the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, which has sent fighters to Syria to back the government of President al-Assad, is providing Jabal Mohsen's Alawite militiamen with support and arms. Doubtless also sticking their oar in too by way of financial and material help for Jabal Mohsen's fighters is the Syrian intelligence service.

It's not all one sided of course, for the same can be said of Sunni fighters in Bab al-Tebbaneh who are rumoured to benefit from the largesse of certain Sunni Gulf states and jihadist groups.

In short, anyone with an interested in exporting the Syrian civil war and exploiting the sectarian divisions it brings between Sunni and Shia Muslims is a bit player here. Tripoli's turmoil might be Lebanon's most visible manifestation of this fallout from the Syrian war, but Tuesday's twin bombing of the Iranian embassy was also a wider attempt by Sunni jihadists to send a clear message to Hezbollah and Iran over their involvement in the conflict on the side of the al-Assad regime.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group in the Levant region, claimed responsibility for the embassy bombings. But rather than deter Hezbollah and Iran from reinforcing the Syrian regime, the Azzam Brigade's attack will likely only spur on al-Assad's allies and no doubt contributed additional momentum to their recent battlefield success in taking control of Syria's strategic Qalamoun area, which borders Lebanon and overlooks the critical M5 highway to the coast. T

he fight for control of Qalamoun has also added to that other visible manifestation of the Syrian war in Lebanon, the refugee exodus. According to humanitarian workers I spoke with on the border, over the past few days as many as 20,000 new Syrian refugees have fled the fighting in Qalamoun, crossing the frontier into Lebanon to join almost one million others who have sought sanctuary there. It's worth pointing out that the vast majority of ordinary Lebanese as well as their government have by and large been sympathetic towards the terrible plight of those Syrians displaced by the fighting. But it would be remiss of any accurate analysis of the situation not to acknowledge that this tolerance is beginning to show signs of waning. In West Beirut's Hamra district on Tuesday night following the bomb attack on the Iranian embassy I listened to the views of some young Lebanese and what has become a familiar refrain.

"These refugees are bringing the war into our own neighbourhoods," was how one young Beiruti man summed it up. His take, of course, is not strictly accurate in that the refugees themselves are not to blame. That said, those million or so displaced have become the most obvious targets for the fears and frustrations of ordinary Lebanese still haunted by Syria's past role in their country and the sectarian divisions that came with it ripping Lebanon apart for years. Over decades I have visited Lebanon many times during its seemingly interminable periods of political turmoil. Betting man I'm not, but I would lay odds that another and potentially devastating crisis emanating from its Syrian neighbour lies just around the corner.

Read more: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/syrian-civil-war-threatens-to-tear-lebanon-to-pieces.22758821




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