Iraqi Christians: Round trip to Death Street – ISN
August 20th, 2008
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=19329
Faces of the family hidden to protect their identity (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Iraqi Christian refugees flee the horror of sectarian violence at home to struggle with life in Lebanon.
By Simon Roughneen in Beirut for ISN Security Watch
“My friend was stopped at a checkpoint on the road to Irbil from Baghdad. The people in the car had to show their ID cards to the masked men.
“They could see she was Christian from her name. They dragged her from the car, pushed her to her knees and put a gun to her head.
“They told her to convert to Islam, or die. She refused and started praying out loud. But they did not kill her, not straight away. They raped her and then she was shot in the head.”
Pascale (her name and the names of her family members have been changed to protect their identity) has recounted this tale too many times to cry any more. However this story, as elemental as it is heart-rending, is not unique among the estimated 2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country since 2003. (more…)
Petraeus’ visit focuses on military assistance – The Washington Times
August 14th, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/14/petraeus-visit-focuses-on-military-assistance/
BEIRUT — Gearing up to take over the U.S. Central Command for the Middle East in September, Gen. David H. Petraeus last week paid a surprise visit to Beirut to meet Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon said the meetings “focused on the United States´ assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces, so it can maintain peace and stability, and safeguard the Lebanese people.”
Shot-up banner of Saad Hariri, Tripoli (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Sectarian tensions heat up in Lebanon – The Washington Times
August 4th, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/04/sectarian-tensions-heat-up-in-lebanon/
Outside forces fuel instability
BEIRUT | The banner draped across one of downtown Beirut’s plush ice-cream parlors reads “taste the reconciliation.”
The specialty of the house is a multiflavored melange that includes all the colors of the parties of Lebanon’s political spectrum, now ostensibly united after three years of discord.
Banner in central Beirut (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
But sweet sloganeering aside, a political chill is in the air, as uncomfortable as Beirut’s summer heat. Tensions between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims are rising, and Syria is reasserting its political clout three years after it was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in the aftermath of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Renewed fighting last week in the northern city of Tripoli, a Sunni-dominated region, underlined the precariousness of the peace agreement reached in Qatar in May between the Hezbollah-led opposition backed by Syria and Iran and the Western-supported March 14 movement, named for the start of the Cedar Revolution triggered by the Hariri assassination in February 2005.
“A lot of Saudi money has been put into the north to cultivate Wahhabi/Salafist ideology, to counter Hezbollah,” reflecting wider Sunni-Shi’ite regional rivalries, said Ahmad Moussali, a professor of political science and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut. “These radicals see the Lebanese army as weak, and March 14 Sunnis cannot stop them confronting Shi’ites or Alawites.”
Alawites are members of a Shi’ite offshoot that is the sect of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Saudi Arabia follows the strict Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam. Salafism is a variant of Wahhabism practiced largely in northern Africa. Hezbollah is a Shi’ite Islamist militant group based in Lebanon.
One northern Lebanese Sunni jihadist group called Fatah-al-Islam is regarded as a Syrian creation, raising suspicions that Damascus is orchestrating both sides of the Tripoli fighting. (more…)
Fighting in Tripoli, Syrian hands – World Politics Review
August 4th, 2008
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2524
TRIPOLI, Lebanon — On the road into Tripoli from the south, Lebanon’s condo- and casino-dotted coastline rises sharply inland to hills crowded with apartments, churches and mosques. Cable cars running to the high ground provide spectacular views of the turquoise Mediterranean to the west, and of Beirut to the south.
Further on, as traffic enters Tripoli, a reassuring sign overhead reads: “Relax, you are in Al-Mina, the city of waves and horizon.”
Aftermath of fighting in Tripoli, Aug08. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Al-Mina is the name for the section of the city surrounding the pristine harbor, where tourists can take boat trips to islands in the Mediterranean, under the shadow of the Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles, the 1,000-year-old former Crusader stronghold. On the weekend of July 27-27, the siren call of this would-be paradise was drowned out by barrages of gunfire and explosions. Sunni and Alawite militias took to the streets to fight and, with the U.S.-backed Lebanese Army slow to intervene, by July 29 bombed-out buildings and bullet-pocked walls were visible on either side of the city’s Sunni-Alawite divide.
(more…)
Lebanese Christians mull Damascene conversion – Asia Times
August 2nd, 2008
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JH02Ak04.html
BEIRUT – Renewed fighting last weekend in Tripoli, in the northern Sunni-dominated region, demonstrates Lebanon’s precarious peace, and a potential rise of Salafist-jihadi influence, in response to the seemingly irresistible will to power emanating from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s southern Beirut lair.
St George's Cathedral, Beirut (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Ahmad Moussali is professor of political science and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut. He told Asia Times Online, “A lot of Saudi money has been put into the north to cultivate Wahhabi/Salafist ideology, to counter Hezbollah,” reflecting wider Sunni-Shi’ite regional rivalries.
“These radicals see the Lebanese army as weak, and [ruling coalition] March 14 Sunnis cannot stop them confronting Shi’ites or Alawites [a sect of Shi'ites].” (more…)
The Flower of Lebanon Languisheth – Middle East Times/RTÉ World Report
July 28th, 2008
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0802/worldreport.html
http://www.metimes.com/Opinion/2008/07/28/the_flower_of_lebanon_languisheth/6953/
BEIRUT — With its sun-kissed Mediterranean coast, and cedar-laden snow-bound mountains, Lebanon, like California, is one of the few places where you can top up your tan in the morning, and ski in the afternoon.
'Hariri' or al-Amin mosque in central Beirut, close to where Rafik Hariri was assassinated in 2005 (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Add that to Beirut’s seen-to-be-seen party-hard attitude, great cuisine and plush shopping malls, it is easy to see why this tiny country was a Middle East culture-hub during the 20th century.
But, as Scripture puts it, “the flower of Lebanon languisheth.”
A recent power sharing deal cut in Doha, between the pro-West March 14 coalition and the Iran-backed Hezbollah-led opposition, might seem like progress for the politically-polarized nation, but in reality, Lebanon remains unstable. (more…)
