ANALYSIS-Politics and Islam blend uneasily in Lebanese city
17 Oct 2008 07:38:59 GMT Source: Reuters
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent TRIPOLI, Lebanon, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Syria portrays this run-down city in north Lebanon as a hotbed of Islamist militancy -- worrying Lebanese leaders alert for any Syrian intervention. The fears of both sides may be overblown. "I doubt very much that Tripoli is the 'Kandahar' of Lebanon," said Oumayma Abdel Latif, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Centre who has studied the city's Sunni movements, including Salafi purists inspired by early Islam. "The salafis who decided to embrace violence as a way to change -- we really don't know much about them," she said, describing such militants as a small, disparate minority. Islamist fighters, including Arab veterans from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have found havens in Lebanon, especially in Palestinian refugee camps off-limits to security forces. Some have links to al Qaeda, as well as to local clerics who spring from homegrown Salafi groups with a longstanding foothold in Tripoli and other Sunni-dominated cities, researchers say. The Lebanese authorities are rolling up a network of militants allegedly behind two Tripoli bombings that killed 22 people, including 15 army soldiers, in August and September. Syria, whose troops left Lebanon in 2005 after three decades of control, has blamed Islamists from a "neighbouring Arab country" for a bomb blast that killed 17 in Damascus last month. Security sources say 24 Lebanese and Palestinian militants have been detained in the past week, including seven said to have confessed to taking part in the Tripoli attacks. The detainees, who have yet to be charged, obtained their explosives from an al Qaeda-linked militant in the Palestinian camp of Ain al-Hilweh in south Lebanon, the sources added. They said the attackers sought revenge for the Lebanese army's defeat last year of Fatah al-Islam, an al Qaeda-inspired group, in Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian camp near Tripoli. At least 430 people were killed, including 170 soldiers and 220 militants, in 15 weeks of fighting that destroyed the camp. TENSION SIMMERS Tripoli remains on edge, even though traffic throbs in its noisy streets, adorned with giant posters of rival politicians. The city's mostly Sunni residents, whose votes could sway next year's parliamentary election, are caught up in Lebanon's political conflict -- itself linked to a wider contest pitting Iran and Syria against Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies. Sectarian feelings stirred in these struggles have fuelled fighting -- calmed by a reconciliation last month -- between Sunnis and pro-Syrian Alawis, from a sect akin to Shi'ism. Concern about Syrian intervention rose last month after President Bashar al-Assad spoke of "extremist forces" in Tripoli and moved troops to the Lebanese border in what his foreign minister termed a campaign against "smuggling and sabotage". Sheikh Daa'i al-Islam Shahhal, a top Salafi leader, told Kuwait's al-Anbaa newspaper that a Syrian incursion would "open the gates of hell" and create Iraq-style misery in Lebanon. Sunni Arabs, a minority in Shi'ite-ruled Iraq, form one of Lebanon's main communities, along with Shi'ites and Christians. Fear about Assad's intentions has receded, especially after Syria finally forged diplomatic ties with Lebanon this week, breaking six decades of ambiguity towards Lebanese sovereignty. Yet hostility towards Syria is shared by many of Tripoli's numerous Islamist factions, whose activities span a spectrum from charity and religious work to politics and militancy. Some Muslim clerics accuse Syria, Iran and their Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah ally of trying to smear Sunnis as terrorists. Security sources also say many of the Islamist militants came to Lebanon through Syria. They suggest Assad is seeking favour with the West by painting Syria as a bulwark against Muslim militancy. Sheikh Bilal Baroudi said all of Tripoli, "fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists", had stood by Lebanon's army against Fatah al-Islam, which he called a tool of Syrian intelligence. "This position doesn't please Hezbollah or the Syrians," the mosque preacher said. "They always try to ignite problems to portray Tripoli and its Muslims as against the army." He ridiculed any attempt to equate Salafis with terrorists. SLAIN LEADER Several Sunni leaders said they had felt orphaned since the 2005 assassination in Beirut of billionaire politician Rafik al-Hariri, the community's acknowledged national leader. Sunnis here also shared the humiliation dealt to his son and successor Saad al-Hariri in May when Hezbollah and its allies briefly seized Beirut in a display of force. The later violence in Tripoli is widely seen as an attempted Sunni riposte. But Tripoli's Islamists are far from united. Some keep up a dialogue with Hezbollah, admiring its resistance to Israel. Some Salafi groups even signed an understanding with the Shi'ite faction in August -- only to repudiate it the next day. Sheikh Bilal Shaaban, leader of Tawheed, an Islamist faction that ruled Tripoli for a while until crushed by the Syrians in 1985, described his relations with Hezbollah as excellent. He accused Saudi Arabia of using Sunnis in a proxy war with Syria. Contradictory rumours and conspiracy theories fly fast in Tripoli, where some Muslim clerics say local politicians and foreign powers exploit Sunni sectarian fears for their own ends. "We are not a card in the hands of anyone and we don't want to be the fuel for sedition," said Sheikh Mohammed Khodr, who describes himself as a Salafi opposed to militia violence. He stressed the need for religious leaders to advocate peaceful coexistence among Lebanon's 18 sects. "The alternative is chaos and civil war, which we have already tried."(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
U.S citizen Taylor Luck is pictured in this handout photograph released by the U.S embassy in Beirut October 8, 2008. The U.S. embassy in Lebanon said on Wednesday two American citizens, ...
