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.

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…)

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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.”

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…)

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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.

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…)

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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.

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…)

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Basra Fighting may overshadow NATO Summit – Sunday Business Post

March 30th, 2008

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/03/30/story31621.asp

Civil war may loom again, with Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdul Hakim – both Shi’ite warlords – now facing-off, and Sunni tribes armed by the US increasingly disenchanted at being sidelined by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-dominated government, whose army has been unable to stop the fighting and has little sway with al-Sadr or Hakim. This fiendishly-complex tinderbox will likely overshadow next week’s NATO summit, which already had plenty on its plate.

The alliance turns 60 next year, and since Communism’s European collapse removed its founding raison d’etre, a midlife crisis ensued. After 9/11, however, NATO invoked its collective defence provision for the only time in its history, and in 2006 it took over leadership of UN-sanctioned military operations in Afghanistan. (more…)

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