Page 2 of 2 Lebanon bending under
extremist challenge By Mahan Abedin
October 2001. This breakaway
faction was led by Abdullah Shreidi, a son of the
slain Hisham Shreidi.
Before the formal
split, Asbat al-Ansar had gained notoriety by
assassinating four judges in Sidon in June 1999.
This was followed by a rocket-propelled-grenade
attack on the Russian Embassy in Beirut in January
2000. This assault coincided with the so-called
"Diniyeh uprising", when a few hundred Sunni
militants went on the rampage
in northern Lebanon. It is not clear whether Asbat
al-Ansar had played a role in that brief
insurrection. What is beyond dispute is that
Asbat al-Ansar has been a role model for Sunni
militant organizations in Lebanon, the constant
inter-group rivalries and conflicts
notwithstanding. Asbat's resilience and modus
operandi have been an inspiration for groups
such as Jund al-Sham, Asbat al-Nour, and now Fatah
al-Islam.
To be fair, Fatah al-Islam seems
to be an extreme version of this model. Its
ideology and rhetoric (the group claims to want to
liberate Jerusalem, without explaining how this
can be done from northern Lebanon) and its
methodology are more extreme than Asbat
al-Ansar's. While Asbat al-Ansar aspires to be a
long-term player on the fringes of Lebanese
politics, Fatah al-Islam seems to have been a
short-term affair.
This has exacerbated
the conspiracy theories surrounding the group,
with claims that it had been created for a single
purpose, namely to destabilize Lebanon. This line
of reasoning appeals most to the supporters of the
embattled March 14 coalition who tend to accuse
Syria of everything that goes wrong in Lebanon.
The spectacular failure of the Lebanese
security forces to crush a small group of
militants at the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in a
short space of time is an obvious reflection of
the weakness and fragility of the Lebanese state.
But behind this glaring incompetence lies a web of
violently divergent local agendas underpinned by
regional political-religious trends and competing
foreign interests.
At the institutional
level, the security vacuum in Lebanon is
exacerbated by the growing sectarian nature of the
country's security forces. Indeed, the Lebanese
Internal Security Forces (ISF) are mostly drawn
from the Sunni community, which - in today's
highly charged sectarian climate - means that they
have a less than favorable view of Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Army is much less sectarian
and is considered to be sympathetic to Hezbollah.
This division had disastrous consequences on the
first day of the ISF's assault on Nahr el-Bared on
May 19. Because the ISF had not coordinated its
assault with the army, it was the latter that paid
the price after Fatah al-Islam militants
slaughtered army soldiers based immediately
outside the camp.
At the political level,
both the ruling March 14 coalition and the
Hezbollah/Free Patriotic Movement-led opposition
stand to gain from the instability.
First
and foremost, Saad al-Hariri's Future Movement has
much to answer for over its dalliance with
extremist Sunni organizations. Hariri's aunt
(Bahiyah Hariri) raised eyebrows after she paid
off Jund al-Sham militants who had demanded
compensation after the Lebanese Army ejected them
from a neighborhood close to Ein al-Hilweh. More
broadly, because the political base of the Future
Movement (and the March 14 coalition as a whole)
lies in the Sunni community, the Hariri-Fouad
Siniora axis is not overly keen to pressurize
Sunni Islamists, not even the most extreme
elements in their ranks.
Arguably, this
was the single most important factor that enabled
Fatah al-Islam to develop an impressive base of
operations in Nahr el-Bared (complete with regular
shipments of arms) with little if any official
harassment.
The opposition (in particular
Hezbollah) also stands to gain from the political
repercussions of the month-long fighting in Nahr
el-Bared and nearby Tripoli. The opposition claims
that the fighting hurts its cause, not least
because it overshadows Hezbollah (which wields -
by a considerable margin - the largest and most
impressive militia in the country) and eclipses
what is regularly billed as a "victory" against
Israel in last summer's 33-day
conflict.
This may be true, but the
political fallout from the fighting at Nahr
el-Bared (which threatened to spread to other
camps, especially Ein al-Hilweh) clearly benefits
Hezbollah, at least in the short term - not least
because it bolsters the argument that the Shi'ite
Islamist movement needs to maintain its armed wing
in the face of perilously unpredictable internal
threats.
The rise of Fatah al-Islam is
also partly attributable to the growing divergence
of foreign interests in Lebanon. The most
important development in this regard has been the
breakdown of the Saudi-Syrian understanding in
Lebanon. As this author explained in an article
last year, the assassination of Rafik Hariri in
February 2005 unraveled the Saudi-Syrian detente
in Lebanon. [3]
The withdrawal of Syrian
forces has emboldened the Saudis to establish
concrete footholds in the country. It is still
unclear whether Fatah al-Islam has received
financial and other assistance from official
circles in Saudi Arabia, but it is more than
likely that private donors in the kingdom have
funneled money to the extremist organization.
The Saudi media empire (and its local
outlets in Lebanon) has gone out of its way to
link Fatah al-Islam to Syria and play down Saudi
membership in the organization. But as it has
turned out, a significant number of slain and
captured Fatah al-Islam militants (perhaps up to
20%) were Saudis. While this does not necessarily
implicate the kingdom, it does lend credence to
the argument that wealthy donors there - and the
militant Salafi networks that are connected to
them - have played a significant role in the rise
of Fatah al-Islam.
Having recovered from
the shock of last year's conflict between Israel
and Hezbollah - which jeopardized Saudi
investments in Lebanon and bolstered Hezbollah
both locally and regionally - Saudi Arabia has
embarked on a determined plan to secure influence
in the country.
But unlike in the 1990s,
this influence infrastructure is independent of
Syrian patronage and control. The thrust of the
Saudi plan is centered on isolating and weakening
Hezbollah, thus curtailing Iranian influence in
Lebanon. Clearly, the rise in Sunni militancy (and
its concomitant sectarian politics) is one of the
most effective means of undercutting Hezbollah.
This Saudi plan converges with the interests of
the March 14 Alliance and the US government.
The biggest loser of this complex web of
local, regional and international rivalries and
conflicts is, of course, Lebanon. While talk of a
return to civil war is exaggerated, there can be
little doubt that the country is set for prolonged
periods of instability. The Lebanese - anxious to
maintain a veneer of unity in the midst of
glaringly profound divisions - will no doubt blame
their weak state and constant foreign machinations
for their woes. But these eruptions of
unpredictable violence call into question the very
idea of Lebanon as a viable nation-state.
Notes 1. Oren Barak,
"'Don't Mention the War'?: The Politics of
Remembrance and Forgetfulness in Postwar Lebanon",
The Middle East Journal, Vol 61, No 1, Winter
2007. 2. Gary C Gambill, The rise of Fatah
al-Islam, Mideast Monitor, Vol 2, No 1, June
2007. 3. Mahan Abedin, Saudis mull
losses in Lebanon as bid for influence is
shattered, Saudi Debate, July 2006.
(This article first appeared in SaudiDebate.com.
Published with permission.)
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