Lebanon May Attract Sunnis Seeking to Wage Jihad
Fears in Beirut that recent Shiite attacks may set the stage for revenge violence this summer
"We are worried about this and watching very closely," a Hezbollah ground commander said this week. "We know they will be coming here now."
Hezbollah, according to the commander, has plans in place for such attacks, including a security plan to close off Shiite neighborhoods from the rest of the city. It also has a formidable intelligence service already tasked with watching for Iraq veterans trying to illegally enter from Syria.
But while such groups have received little support from Lebanon's Sunnis in the past, their humiliating defeat last week by Hezbollah and the tensions that led to the clashes already had Beirut's urbane and unarmed Sunni population looking to religious conservatives and rougher men from outlying regions like Tripoli, Akkar, and the Bekaa Valley, which all have significant militant communities.
"We know that the Future Movement has been working with some groups and that new groups have been forming in Tripoli," one top security official not cleared to speak to the media said early this year. "These groups have similar ideas to al Qaeda and can offer weapons and training to the Sunnis here. We are also seeing support from some Saudi princes concerned about Iran's influence."
Are they sending jihadist fighters? "We're not sure yet, but these are the same people who have sent them in the past," he said. "I'm not sure the country could take this new threat. It's already so weak."
The nearly perfect conditions for an al Qaeda-like outbreak of violence in Lebanon have not been missed by the group's senior leadership. On April 22, al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri suggested the Middle East's most liberal and diverse nation could play an important role in the ongoing conflict with the West. "Lebanon is a Muslim frontline fort," he said. "It will have a pivotal role, God willing, in future battles with the Crusaders and the Jews.
"I call upon the jihadist generation in Lebanon to prepare to reach Palestine and to banish the invading Crusader forces which are claimed to be peacekeeping forces in Lebanon," he said, in reference to the United Nations peacekeepers on Lebanon's southern border with Israel.
Reader Comments
its amazing how its always about sunnis and shites and never the real issue of israel occupying arab lands....i'm neither a sunni or shite...nor am i racist...the core of the problem is there is no patriotism...look at how the jews all speak in one voice.....to those that keep repeating the old sunni vs shite rhetoric are you not tired of it? It has gotten arabs nowhere.....fact...there are over 1billion muslims in the world and out of those 2million in lebanon have ground israel and the US to a halt....the core of islam and any reliogion is to fight injustice....fact...for 60 years all the arabs..muslims, christians and druze have turned a blind eye to the injustises being done to the people of palestine....Fact...price bundar of Saudis Arabia flew to israel personally during the recent conflict in Lebanon to meet with olmert and ask him to attack Hezbollah and that he would bare the costs.....Fact...hezbollah defeated israel in the last war.....fact....the israeli heirachy to this day has not recovered from it......the truth is as arabs we are told to put up or shut up....fact....most of these sunni extremists come from countries aligned to the US as so called moderate arabs.....fact...the issue of sectarian violence is one the west forces on the arabs...both sides in lebanon have all the sects present in their groups....look at what happened in halba...sunnis killed sunnis....i could go on and on...get over the sunni vs shite thing its become stale.......
THE BONE HEAD ARABS TRATORS.
TH ESE ARE A BUNCH OF BACK STABBING DUNCE DUMMIES.CAN THEY SEE THAT THAT THE WEST IS USING THEM TO PROCTECT ISREAL HEZBOLLAH IS THE REAL GOURVEMEMT NOT THE PUTTET THE WEST PUT THERE.LONG LIVVER HEZBOLLAH AGAINST THE STRUGGLE FOR A WEST FREE STATE.
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