Counterterrorism Blog

A wind of optimism blew over Beirut after the recent general elections won by the pro-Western March 14 bloc in an overall serene atmosphere. Thanks to this, Lebanon has been enjoying so far one of its best tourist seasons in a while. But this might be over soon because of the agenda of extremist elements that have been recently reactivated.

The first usual suspect that has been involved in recent incidents is the Shiite militia Hezbollah. The party of God has built over the years a state within a state and has beefed up its military capabilities after the war with Israel over the summer of 2006. Hezbollah can boast a much more robust and sophisticated army than the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has. According to various reports Hezbollah has rebuilt an arsenal of over 40,000 rockets. And this in clear violation of UN resolution 1701 that was passed at the end of the 2006 war and also under the nose of the UNIFIL forces stationed in the south.
This issue came to the fore with a bang: indeed on July 14, an arms cache belonging and “actively maintained” by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon blew up. That is the conclusion of a just released UN report. On July 15, a UN investigative team was prevented to physically investigate the matter by individuals that a recent UN report describes as members of Hezbollah. According to that same report, these individuals were seen hauling boxes from the explosion site and intended to destroy evidence. A few days later 14 soldiers of UNIFIL were wounded after Shiite “demonstrators”, that happened to be quite well organized, threw stones at them. Interestingly, Hezbollah maintains that the “demonstrators” were just villagers defending their land. Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad went as far as criticizing UNIFIL for not respecting the specificity of the villages and private property. Naim Kassem, Hezbollah’s number 2, also turned around the situation accusing UNIFIL of having made a mistake by trying to enter a house without coordinating with the Lebanese army. That last remark is quite telling since the LAF composed of about 30% of Shiite elements has been suspected by many analysts of leaking information to Hezbollah.
This latest incident is just the tip of the iceberg and Hezbollah’s active rearming is worrying numerous Western diplomats. A possible worsening of the situation in southern Lebanon is very much in the cards and even though some believe that Syria has no interest in igniting a fire, Tehran, Hezbollah’s other major supporter, might have another view.

Shiite extremists are not the only ones that have been in the news in Lebanon recently. Sunni extremists linked to Fatah al Islam, a terror group loosely linked to Al Qaeda and that fought the LAF in Nahr el Bared in 2007, were arrested on July 21 by the LAF. This cell was composed of ten members hailing from various Arab countries and one from Greece. The ringleader, a Syrian national, traveled to six Arab countries in 15 days and his group was planning attacks against UNIFIL and Israel. Interestingly this cell was using a billboard advertising agency as cover to spy on UNIFIL forces and LAF as well.
Once again Lebanon is used as a fighting ground for extremists of all kinds. Foreign countries are also very much meddling in domestic affairs. For proof, Saudi Arabia and Syria, respectively the main supporters of the March 14 bloc and the March 8 coalition (that includes Hezbollah, the Shiite Amal and the Christians of General Aoun), have not agreed on the composition of a government and therefore everything is at a standstill.

It is high time that the Lebanese people can decide of their fate themselves but unfortunately that is just wishful thinking at this point.