Articles:
Syria’s Civil War is Spilling into Lebanon
Can Hezbollah Survive the Fall of Assad?
Lebanon’s First Defection From Assad
Syria Spillover Or Frail Statehood?
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SYRIA’S CIVIL WAR IS SPILLING INTO LEBANON
Michael J. Totten
Gatestone Institute, August 31, 2012
Syria’s civil war was doomed from the very beginning to spill into Lebanon. Trouble started last year shortly after peaceful demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad’s regime turned violent, and it started again last week when sectarian clashes ripped through the northern city of Tripoli, the second-largest in Lebanon after Beirut, and turned parts of it into a war zone.
Sunni militiamen from Tripoli’s neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh are slugging it out again with militants from the adjacent Alawite stronghold of Jabal Mohsen. They have transformed their corner of Lebanon into a mirror of the Syrian war, in which Sunni rebels are waging pitched battles with the Alawite-dominated military and government…
Tensions are also increasing between Lebanon’s Sunnis, who support the Syrian uprising, and Lebanon’s Shias, who support the Assad regime and Hezbollah. Syrian rebels recently kidnapped a man they say is a Hezbollah member; his Lebanese clan members ran around southern Beirut with AK-47s and ski masks and kidnapped almost two dozen Syrian Sunnis and even a Turkish citizen in Lebanon .
Some reporters are describing the violence as some of the worst since the Lebanese civil war that raged from 1975-1990 — so far a bit of an exaggeration, with numbers still insignificant compared to the thousands killed, tortured, and maimed next-door in Syria. But the numbers could easily mushroom, transforming the entire Lebanese political scene for the worse.
Assad’s occupation of Lebanon was terminated seven years ago by the Beirut Spring, but the two countries still function to an extent as a single political unit. Syria may no longer have its smaller neighbor under direct military rule, but it has been deliberately exporting its violence, dysfunction, and terrorism since the 1970s. Its hegemony there was partially restored when Hezbollah invaded Beirut in 2008, forcing anti-Syrian parties to surrender much of their power at gunpoint.
Even if Assad had no interest in mucking around in Beirut’s internal affairs — even if Lebanon were entirely free of Syrian influence — we should still expect to see the conflict spill over. The Lebanese could not build a firewall even if the Syrians wanted to help them – but definitely not while terrified Syrian refugees are holing up in the county, and not when Hezbollah has a vested interest in keeping its patron and armorer in charge in Damascus, and not with Sunnis and Alawites living cheek-by-jowl in the north.
Lebanon, unlike most Arab countries, has a weak central government. The Lebanese designed it that way on purpose so that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to rule as a strongman; and the country is more or less evenly divided between Christians, Sunnis, and Shias, so that no single sectarian community could easily take control over the others.
The problem, of course, is that weak central government combined with sectarian centrifugal force constantly threaten to rip the country apart. As the army is just as riven by political sectarianism as the rest of the country, when civil conflict breaks out, the army does a terrible job. Its leadership does not dare take sides lest the officers and enlisted men under their command splinter apart into rival militias as they did during the civil war. Further, the Syrian regime left pieces of itself behind when it withdrew from Lebanon in the spring of 2005. Many of the army’s senior officers were promoted and appointed by Damascus; they still have their jobs and their loyalties, at least for now.
So while the violence in Lebanon is at the moment contained, it is barely contained. The real danger here is not that people will be kidnapped and killed by the dozen in isolated neighborhoods. The real danger is that if the situation does not calm down and stay down, the normally placid Sunni community will become increasingly radical.
For years the overwhelming majority of Lebanon’s Sunnis have thrown their support behind the Future Movement, the liberal, capitalist, and pro-peace party of Rafik and Saad Hariri. The Muslim Brotherhood hardly gets any more votes in Lebanon than it would in the United States. But conservative Sunnis are only willing to support moderates like the Hariris when they feel safe. If they feel physically threatened by Alawite militias, Hezbollah, or anyone else for too long, many will feel they have little choice but to back radical Sunni militias if no one else will protect them…. (Top)
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CAN HEZBOLLAH SURVIVE THE FALL OF ASSAD?
Hanin Ghaddar
New York Times, Aug. 29, 2012
THE Syrian government has tried many times to transfer its crisis to Lebanon, but it has failed to cause a real explosion that would lead to another Lebanese civil war. It has, however, succeeded in inciting small outbreaks of violence that have pushed the country to the verge of a breakdown for the past 17 months.
Clashes in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli between Sunnis and Alawites have intensified in recent days — but this time the Lebanese Army intervened to stop the fighting.
Something fundamental has changed: the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, long Syria’s powerful proxy in Lebanon, has become a wounded beast. And it is walking a very thin line between protecting its assets and aiding a crumbling regime next door.
It seems that the Lebanese Army has finally received political cover, mainly from President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Mikati, to confront Hezbollah and its allies and to put an end to the violence. On Sunday, 18 armed men from a family with links to Hezbollah were arrested by the Lebanese Army. Two trucks and a warehouse full of weaponry were confiscated.
This arrest is politically significant. It means that the Lebanese prime minister and president are no longer willing to jeopardize stability in Lebanon by giving Hezbollah full cover, as they have usually done since June 2011, when a Hezbollah-dominated government came to power. Indeed, Syria is losing sway in Lebanon, and Hezbollah no longer exercises the same level of control over state institutions as it once did.
Today, Hezbollah is regarded by the Arab street as an ally of a dictator who is killing his people.
Losing regional popularity is one thing, but losing its constituency at home is something Hezbollah cannot tolerate. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2013, and Hezbollah prefers not to take any risks. It will do whatever it takes to maintain its control in Lebanon. So will Iran. Iran is doing its utmost to prolong Mr. Assad’s rule in Syria, and it would likely do much more to hang on to Lebanon. Tehran can’t afford to lose both.
The erosion of Hezbollah’s control started with the arrest on Aug. 9 of Bashar al-Assad’s friend and adviser, the former Lebanese information minister Michel Samaha, in connection with a seizure of explosives that were to be used in northern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities jointly charged him and the Damascus-based Syrian national security chief, Gen. Ali Mamluk, with plotting “terrorist attacks” and the assassination of political and religious figures in Lebanon.
While none of Syria’s allies in Lebanon spoke in defense of Mr. Samaha, a reaction came from the street a few days later. A Shiite family whose son was abducted in Syria began a wave of random kidnappings of Syrians; rioters blocked the road to the Beirut airport; dozens of Syrians were abducted, and their shops were vandalized.
The political storm that followed Mr. Samaha’s arrest subsided immediately. Hezbollah did not comment on the arrest, but in a speech following the events, its chief, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, told the public that he and his party were incapable of controlling the street, hinting at more chaos to come.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese government, which is still dominated by Hezbollah, has failed to address several basic domestic issues like public services and security. Many communities, including Shiites in the south and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, have taken to the streets in the past few months to protest increasing power outages.
Mr. Assad may not yet realize that he is a dead man walking, but Hezbollah does. That does not mean, however, that the party will change its stance on Syria as the Palestinian militant group Hamas has done. If it did, it would lose its supply lines from Iran. So Hezbollah’s main objective is to avoid a full explosion before the parliamentary elections. After all, an election victory would allow Hezbollah to maintain its political control over Lebanon democratically, without having to resort to arms. Tehran would also prefer to avoid any war that would force Hezbollah to get involved — namely, a war with Israel. That could lead to the party’s losing both its weapons and its supporters.
Hezbollah has an interest in keeping the violence at a simmer for the moment, but the longer Mr. Assad stays, the greater the risk that sectarian tensions will boil over in Lebanon. (Hanin Ghaddar is the editor of NOW Lebanon.) (Top)
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Ana Maria Luca
NOW Lebanon, September 5, 2012
“Look at us, we are the Sunni army they’re talking about,” shouts Abu Osman, a well-built young man in his early 30s standing next to his group’s leader, Sheikh Bilal, who’s a few years younger than him. Abu Osman is a former policeman, but first and foremost, he says, he’s a Sunni from Zahrieh, a Sunni enclave near the flashpoint neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh. The man is as big as a mountain. To his fellow fighters he’s a great asset when battling the Alawite boys up in Jabal Mohsen. He owns a Kalashnikov PKS machinegun, for which he says he paid $5,000.
The men gathered at the sheikh’s home to talk about security after the fighting that had taken place a week before with the militia members in Jabal Mohsen. The shooting has been over for days, but the fighters are still alert. “We know this is not over. Tripoli is a Sunni castle, and we’re defending it. If the Shiites and the Alawites didn’t work with Assad we would leave here in peace,” Sheikh Bilal says, referring to Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, who has allies among the Alawites and Shiites in North Lebanon. “But because of the money, they turned against Lebanon,” he says while the other men nod in agreement.
“We hate Assad and Hezbollah,” says Abu Shadi, a man in his late 30s who says he’s the group’s sniper. “We help the Syrian revolutionaries with whatever we can. We go from door to door and we gather each dollar and then we buy bread and give them to the refugees. We would give our food to these people. All the people here are willing to help the Syrians,” he says, adding that a year ago the boys in the neighborhood gathered their old weapons and sent them to Syria to arm the rebels fighting the Assad regime.
“It is our duty to do that. Our fathers had to fight the Syrian army here in Lebanon. They massacred 700 people in Tripoli,” says Sheikh Bilal, referring to the 1986 massacre of Islamist Tawhid fighters by the Syrian army and the Alawite Arab Democratic Party. “We’ve been fighting ever since here in Tabbaneh.
“The Alawite militia in Jabal Mohsen and Hezbollah’s members in Tripoli are trying to create problems here so that the Syrian government can take some rest. See what happened last week? The entire world was watching Tripoli, all the journalists were here. But we will not let them rest,” Abu Shadi shouts.
A younger fighter shows a video on his phone of how he and his comrades burned an Alawite man’s shop in Tripoli. “We are from Zahrieh, but we all fight in Bab al-Tabbaneh,” Abu Osman intervenes. Abu Shadi continues, “We don’t fight all at once. We take shifts. We’re professional fighters; we all have our own weapons.” Sheikh Bilal says he owns four Kalashnikovs and has pictures on his phone to prove how proficient he is in handling them. Abu Osman shows off a video of him using his PKS Kalashnikov during the fighting a week before. Abu Shadi brags he can shoot a bottle cap on top of the Alawite Mountain. The rest of the men talk about their RPGs and M16s.
“We are not a militia. There is no militia here. We are an army. We fight for ourselves. Nobody is arming us. No politician is giving us weapons. We are just defending our city,” Abu Shadi explains. “The militia is in Jabal Mohsen. They are more organized than us. We intercept their communications, their walkie-talkies,” he adds.
The fighters say weapons have become very expensive during the past year and a half since the Syrian uprising began. A Kalashnikov used to be $500 to $600. Now it’s three times as much. They also feel the cost of ammunition gets higher with every round of shooting. They say they pay $1,000 for a single RPG bomb and $40 for every bullet box. “The Alawites get them for free from the Syrians. The Syrian army gave all the weapons to the Alawite militia when they left Lebanon. Every time we fight, they open the depots and give away the guns for free,” Abu Shadi says.
The conversation is interrupted by a new arrival to the group. The men start cheering. “Look, here we stand united, Christians and Sunnis. He’s Maroun, he’s Christian and he fights by our side in Tabbaneh,” Abu Osman says, springing from his chair and putting his arm over Maroun’s shoulders. Maroun grins and proves he is, indeed, a Christian by lifting the sleeve of his T-shirt and revealing a big blue cross tattooed on his arm. “We stand together. We hate Assad as much as the Sunnis do. In this neighborhood we are together and we defend it together,” Maroun says.
The sheikh notes that his mostly-Sunni army has no intention of invading Jabal Mohsen. “We don’t want another massacre. This fight is going to take at least a few more months. We know that when Assad is gone, the Alawite militias will stop fighting. They will run away. We know because we have experience. We have been fighting here for 30 years.” *All names in this piece have been changed upon request from the interviewees. (Top)
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LEBANON’S FIRST DEFECTION FROM ASSAD
Hanin Ghaddar ,
NOW Lebanon, August 14, 2012
The arrest of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s man in Lebanon, former Minister of Information Michel Semaha, after being caught plotting to carry out a series of bomb attacks was earth-shaking on two levels. One, the Syrian regime had to assign security operations to a politician instead of its usual militias, and two, none of its allies did anything to support Samaha. This shows that Lebanon is at a significant crossroad vis-à-vis its relation to Syria.
After Samaha was charged, everyone in Lebanon thought that hell will rise and that roads all over the country will be blocked with burning tires and raging mobs. Many people stayed home that night assuming that another May 7 will take place. Samaha is supposed to be a big deal. As it turned out, he’s not. Well, not anymore.
Syria's allies in Lebanon have been silent, bit the bullet and avoided all media, especially after the strong incriminating evidence against Samaha was leaked to media. Even the usual mouthpieces of the Syrian regime such as Wiam Wahhab said nothing.
Obviously, defending Samaha after he himself confessed did not make any sense. Moreover, pro-Iranian groups such as Hezbollah would do anything to protect the Syrian regime, but they will not sacrifice themselves for a falling Assad, especially not in Lebanon. Assad using Samaha to implement his terrorist attacks in Lebanon means that Hezbollah was not willing to go that far and that the Party of God still has an interest in safeguarding Lebanon from the imminent fire Assad has been threatening to unleash on his smaller neighbor.
Pro-regime media in Lebanon could not just ignore the issue. However, instead of chalking the whole thing up to the usual “universal conspiracy” against the resistance, Al-Akhbar and As-Safir columnists just criticized the ISF, mainly the Information Branch, for the aggressive way Samaha was taken in and published articles warning about the threat of the Salafists and reminding Lebanese about “terrorists” smuggling arms from Lebanon into Syria. The evidence against Samaha must have been too strong.
It is noteworthy that both Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Premier Najib Miqati have commended the ISF for their successful operation that saved Lebanon from "imminent danger." On the very local political level, this means that the current government, which is widely considered as Syria’s second government, is now showing clear signs of division among its factions.
So what does that tell us? First, the Syrian regime is certainly losing Lebanon, the government and its trusted allies. Second, no one is protected anymore. If Samaha was left to drown, then anyone, no matter how close they are to Assad, could face the same destiny.
But this arrest is not just about the man. It also means that the story Samaha has been selling as Assad’s media advisor, that Al-Qaeda or Salafist groups are behind the violence in Syria and that the minorities are endangered, is not credible anymore. As it turned out, the explosions he was planning were going to be attributed to Al-Qaeda, thereby strengthening the “fear the Islamists” feelings among Lebanese and Syrians.
Samaha was not charged alone. General Ali Mamluk, the Syrian National Security chief, was also charged by the Lebanese authorities with preparing “terrorist attacks” through bombing campaigns, as well as assassination attempts against political and religious figures in Lebanon. Whatever Samaha and the Syrian regime’s officers and media said earlier in regard to this scenario should be taken with a huge grain of salt. It is obvious now that such attacks are fabricated and implemented by the regime’s dirty network.
Beyond Samaha, the most significant part is that this is the first time ever that the Syrian regime has been caught in the act in Lebanon, with strong evidence coming not from outsiders, but from the Lebanese authorities. Mamluk does not represent himself in this case. He stands for the Syrian regime, and the Syrian regime has been charged in Lebanon….
However, things will never be the same again between Lebanon and Syria. Assad’s aura in Lebanon is fading, and sooner or later, the government and political factions will have to do something to avoid further humiliation and risk, at least until elections. (Top)
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NOW Lebanon, August 27, 2012
Hanin Ghaddar
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The Daily Star, August 18, 2012
Rami G. Khouri
Syria Spillover Or Frail Statehood?
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NOW Lebanon, August 13, 2012
Shane Farrell
What is Hezbollah’s Plan B?
