Is Lebanon Winning Against Al-Qaeda?

[Originally posted at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Sada journal]

Despite its weak and fragmented state, Lebanon has had evident success against al-Qaeda, though it may be too soon to declare “mission accomplished.”

In the first two months of 2014, Lebanon appeared to be descending rapidly, almost inexorably, into a mire of alarming bloodshed and instability. An unprecedented wave of al-Qaeda-linked attacks on civilians was accelerating, adding 34 deaths to the more than 50 men, women, and children that such attacks had killed in the second half of 2013. And then, almost without anyone noticing, the attacks ceased. April 2014 was the first month to witness no explosion since October 2013. Even before then, a slowdown had been detectable—from five suicide bombings in February 2014 to two in March, the latter confined to the Syrian border region. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, stated confidently in an April interview that “the risk of [further] explosions has diminished very significantly.” While this was a plainly political statement—aimed at retroactively justifying his group’s controversial military intervention in the neighboring Syrian war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad—it appears to have held up so far, and has been echoed by the head of the Lebanese army.

How, then, did a weak and fragmented state like Lebanon manage to prevail against al-Qaeda? The principal reason was that al-Qaeda’s Lebanese franchisees, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, united Lebanon’s most powerful actors against them. Foremost among these actors is Hezbollah, which, in addition to its paramilitary manpower and hardware, also maintains its own intelligence-gathering and telecommunications networks that allowed them to keep close tabs on the two groups. Jabhat al-Nusra and the Abdallah Azzam Brigades made hostility to Hezbollah their raison d’être, branding it a heretical “Party of Satan” (playing on its name, which means “Party of God”) and stating after every attack that they would continue until the party’s militants withdrew from Syria. Then there are the state forces, which also run multiple and sizeable intelligence-gathering operations. The general outline of the response to the attacks, then, consisted of a manhunt carried out by state security forces in tandem with Hezbollah, based on their combined intelligence, with the blessing of the political establishment and its international backers, including the United States.

This manhunt involved both arrests and targeted killings. In March 2014, a militant wanted for involvement in at least one of the car bombings in Beirut’s southern suburbs was gunned down in a Lebanese army ambush in the mountainous outskirts of the town of Arsal, near the Syrian border. Less clear were the circumstances of the October 2013 killing of a suspect wanted in connection with two car bombings, whose vehicle was reportedly targeted by rocket fire in a remote area, also near Arsal. While state media described it simply as an “armed ambush,” Hezbollah was also accused. Similar mystery surrounded the death in custody of Majid al-Majid, the internationally wanted Saudi leader of the Abdallah Azzam Brigades, credited with masterminding a double suicide attack on Beirut’s Iranian embassy in November 2013. His demise in December, just nine days after his arrest by Lebanese army intelligence, was officially attributed to natural causes—but the Brigades blamed Hezbollah, who in turn pointed the finger at Riyadh.

State authorities also made swift progress on other fronts. A jihadist cleric from Arsal arrested in January 2014 reportedly informed the army of the identity of one Naim Abbas, a Palestinian refugee who became Lebanon’s most wanted suspect and was arrested the following month. Abbas was charged with overseeing two suicide bombings in Beirut’s southern suburbs and reportedly revealed the locations of several explosive-laden vehicles, which were subsequently intercepted by the army. Various other associates of Abbas were also arrested.

As the arrests and indictments mounted, a clearer picture began to emerge of how the militants operated. Prosecutors identified a network linking the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in the southern city of Sidon with the eastern border town of Arsal. A common denominator in more than one attack was the fugitive Lebanese cleric, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, who went into hiding after his militiamen fought a bloody battle with the army and Hezbollah in Sidon in June 2013. At least three suicide bombers claimed in video testimonies to have fought alongside Assir’s men in the clashes.

It was Arsal, however, that Hezbollah officials repeatedly branded as the principal gateway for extremists entering Lebanon from Syria. Three kinds of checkpoints were set up around the town—two manned by the army, and one by Hezbollah gunmen (aptly symbolizing the partnership between the two). Though the latter checkpoints became notorious for harassment and even violence against passers-through, and were eventually removed, the system did have some success as a barricade against attacks—both of the two most recent suicide bombings took place at these checkpoints.

Undergirding all these efforts was the carte blanche given to the army and Hezbollah by the political class, including the patrons of the Sunni community. This in turn was encouraged by influential regional and international powers, including the United States, which has reportedly been sharing intelligence with the Lebanese authorities since July 2013; this was apparently instrumental in the arrest of Naim Abbas. “What happened proves once again that the security situation in Lebanon is directly related to the political situation,” said Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “Whenever we have political agreement, the security situation suddenly becomes very good.”

With that said, the “mission accomplished” attitude struck by Nasrallah and the army commander may yet prove premature, as well as counterproductive. For while Hezbollah may tout its recent advances in Syria’s Qalamoun region on the Lebanese border as a “grand victory” against “terrorism,” this will only harden the hostility felt toward the Shia group by the many Lebanese Sunnis who continue to see the Syrian rebel cause as a just struggle against tyranny. While the country’s Sunnis are on the whole a moderate community, any inflammation of sectarian animosity can only be a boon to the extremist minority, which has grown in numbers and resources as a result of the Syrian war—particularly after Hezbollah’s intervention there.

That Hezbollah has given no indication it intends to withdraw any time soon—and is, indeed, believed to be eyeing new offensives in Aleppo and Daraa—means a fundamental underlying cause of the jihadists’ proliferation is set to remain for the foreseeable future. Moreover, it remains possible that Hezbollah’s displacement of Syrian rebels, including al-Qaeda-linked militants, from Qalamoun has in fact had the effect of drawing them across the highly porous border into Lebanon. New reports of Jabhat al-Nusra conducting kidnappings in Arsal, following a series of skirmishes between Syrian gunmen and the Lebanese army in the area, suggest this process may already be underway. In which case, Lebanon’s al-Qaeda problem may not have been resolved so much as merely interrupted.

[Infograph] Tracking Lebanon's bomb suspects

[Originally posted at NOW, with accompanying infograph]

As a complement to the infograph illustrating the series of vehicle explosions to have struck Lebanon since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, NOW turns below to profiling the key individuals suspected of involvement.

To date, suspects have been identified by Lebanese officials for nine of the eighteen vehicle explosions, from the 9 July, 2013, Bir al-Abed car bomb to the 19 February, 2014, suicide bombings of the Iranian Cultural Chancellery. They range from Lebanese and Palestinian followers of fugitive Sidon cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir to Syrian intelligence operatives and their local proxies to internationally-wanted Saudi jihadists.

Of the remaining nine attacks for whom no individual suspects have been named, four have been claimed by Islamist groups, and five – including the assassinations of police intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan and former minister Muhammad Shatah – have not been claimed by anyone.

The list may not be comprehensive, and covers only those accused of involvement in specific vehicle explosion attacks. It does not, therefore, include individuals arrested on generic charges of "terror" or of merely belonging to militant factions. There is a degree of overlap between the groups – both the Abbas-Atrash ring and the Iranian embassy team, for example, include Abdallah Azzam Brigades members.

As with the infograph, the list will be updated when new data emerge.

[Infograph] Vehicle explosions in Lebanon since 2011

[Originally posted at NOW, with accompanying infograph]

Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in early 2011, Lebanon has witnessed a multifarious deterioration in security, as tensions between domestic supporters and opponents of the Bashar al-Assad regime have sporadically broken out into armed clashes, assassinations, rocket attacks and roadside bombings.

Moreover, since October 2012, the violent fallout from the civil war next door has increasingly taken the form of deadly vehicle explosions, including suicide bombings. These attacks have recently increased in frequency, with five in the first five weeks of 2014 alone, compared to eight in 2013 and one in 2012. Many of the latest bombings have been claimed by extremist Islamist groups with links to al-Qaeda, such as Jabhat al-Nusra in Lebanon, who have declared their intention to continue targeting predominantly Shiite civilian population centers until Lebanese Hezbollah fighters withdraw from Syria; a demand the pro-Assad group has repeatedly rejected. All in all, a total of 123 people have been killed so far by 14 explosions.

Above are two graphics illustrating the timing, location, and outcome of each of these vehicle explosions. Should more occur in the future, NOW will update the graphics accordingly.

Lebanon's new bombs: Killing fewer, but more frequently

[Originally posted at NOW]

Today’s suicide attack in Choueifat, south of Beirut, is the 14th vehicle bombing to have hit Lebanon since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, and the 5th to have occurred in 2014 alone. I only know this because, since the November 2013 double suicide bombing of the Iranian embassy, I’ve felt the need to maintain a database recording the details of each attack; thinking it was an unhealthy sign when one started to lose track of the number of murderous explosions taking place in one’s own country of residence.

A more comprehensive analysis of these data, complete with interactive graphics, will be published by NOW in the coming days, but in the meantime, the following observations may be among the most salient:

• While earlier car bombs tended to be infrequent, but massively destructive spectacles (e.g. the 15 August 2013 Ruwais bomb, killing 27, and the twin Tripoli mosque bombs 8 days later, which killed 45); the last seven have occurred with much higher frequency, but with lower death tolls (all claimed fewer than 10 lives)
• Seven of the fourteen (50%) have occurred in Beirut and its southern suburbs, with the remainder taking place in Tripoli, the south, and the Beqaa Valley.
• Jabhat al-Nusra in Lebanon is the only group to have claimed more than one attack (it’s claimed three so far). The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, the Abdallah Azzam Brigades, the Aisha Mother of the Believers Brigade, and the 313 Special Forces Brigade have each claimed one. Seven attacks have not been claimed by anyone.
• Two of the bombings have been assassinations (of police intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan in October 2012 and former ambassador and minister Mohamad Chatah in December 2013).
• The 14 bombings have killed a total of at least 122, with a number of wounded still hospitalized in critical condition.

Look out for much more detail in NOW’s upcoming interactive report.

Lebanon, where jihadists may roam

[Originally posted at NOW]

On Saturday, what appeared to be a claim by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), perhaps the most terrifying jihadist group in the world at present, to have carried out Thursday’s suicide bombing in Beirut’s southern suburbs began circulating online. Assuming it’s genuine – and at least one analyst is skeptical – this would be the first confirmed ISIS attack on Lebanon, and likely not the last: the statement added the bomb was but “the first small payment of the heavy cost which awaits these immoral criminals [Hezbollah].”

This is obviously troubling for all sorts of reasons, not least being the timing. It comes scarcely two weeks after the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, the official Syrian al-Qaeda subsidiary and ISIS’ most formidable rival in the theocracy stakes, told Al Jazeera that his men too have now arrived in Lebanon, where they will “protect the Sunnis” from the “Party of Iran.” That announcement coincided with the release of a video showing the mujahideen of the all-new ‘Jabhat al-Nusra in Lebanon’ franchise launching ten Grad rockets at Hermel, accompanied by a press release now helpfully published on the group’s Twitter account.

A coincidence, possibly. But Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’s 50-minute interview on the Arab world’s premier TV station put Nusra back in the limelight at a time when ISIS was making an increasingly catastrophic job of hearts-and-minds management in northern Syria (the further bungling of which would lead to this weekend’s extraordinary wave of attacks by numerous rebel brigades on ISIS positions across the country). The urge to one-up Nusra’s ballistic theatrics would only have been natural. Strikingly, Saturday’s ISIS statement even concluded with exactly the same quote from the Qur’an as did the Nusra one; selected – presumably not at random – from a chapter titled al-Munafiqun (“The Hypocrites”.)

In other words, Lebanon may soon become (if it isn’t already) an open arena of intra-jihadist showmanship and competition, in which ISIS, Nusra, the Abdallah Azzam Brigades, and any other takers outbid one another’s bona fides in the currency of civilian blood. Of course, in strictly military terms, this wouldn’t make a great deal of sense – Syria is still the battle that matters, and the road to Damascus doesn’t run through Dahiyeh any more than the path to Jerusalem went through Jounieh. Yet for the purposes of things like raising funds, attracting recruits, and general branding, jihadists still have a toxic sort of incentive to murder a lot more Lebanese civilians.

Back in August, a few days after the first in what has now become a series of deadly car bombs in Beirut’s southern suburbs, I suggested there were three necessary (if not sufficient) measures to prevent such a senseless descent into sectarian slaughter: full cooperation between feuding security agencies; containment by Sunni powers of the extremists among their ranks; and the immediate and full withdrawal of Hezbollah from Syria.

Five months later, we’ve seen almost nothing to suggest progress on the first two fronts. As for the third, consider what the Party of God’s Sheikh Nabil Qaouq had to say yesterday on the subject: “No matter what the size of crimes and car bombs reached, we will not change our position in Syria.” That is a challenge, I fear, that Lebanon’s new jihadist arrivals will be only too happy to take up.

Who are the Abdullah Azzam Brigades?

[Originally posted at NOW]

I wager that not too many people who aren’t unusually interested in militant Islam had heard of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades when the group’s spokesman took to Twitter to claim the twin suicide bombings that killed 23 people outside Beirut’s Iranian embassy yesterday. Who, then, are these supposedly al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists?

The short answer is that nobody really knows. The slightly longer answer is that “Abdullah Azzam” may be more of a brand name than a single, identifiable organization (rather like al-Qaeda itself, in that respect). Abdullah Azzam himself was a Palestinian contemporary of Osama bin Laden’s, or rather a mentor of his. It was as Azzam’s guest than Bin Laden first arrived in Afghanistan shortly after 1979 to wage jihad against the Soviets – a campaign for which Azzam remained an important proselytizer and recruiter throughout the 1980s. By the time of his 1989 assassination in Peshawar, al-Qaeda as we know it today had already taken shape in embryonic form.

While some sources, including the US State Department, cite the founding year of the Brigades as 2009, attacks by groups calling themselves the “Abdullah Azzam Brigades” have been carried out across the Arab world for almost a decade. These include the 2004 truck bombings of the Hilton in Egypt’s Taba; the 2005 car bombings of hotels in Sharm al-Shaikh; the 2005 launching of rockets at US warships in Jordan’s Aqaba; and the 2009 launching of rockets at Israel from south Lebanon in the name of a sub-faction, the Ziad al-Jarrah battalion (named after the Lebanese national who was among the 19 hijackers on 9/11). They also took credit for the 2010 bombing of a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. More recently, they have claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb targeting a Hezbollah convoy in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley this July and the firing of four rockets at Israel from south Lebanon in August, having previously denied conducting a similar rocket attack in December 2011 and bombing an Italian UNIFIL patrol in May 2011. Adding to the general murkiness is that yesterday’s attacks were carried out by the previously-unknown ‘Hussein bin Ali’ sub-faction, named (sarcastically?) after the grandson of the Prophet whose death in the Battle of Karbala was commemorated by Shiites just last week during Ashura.

Like almost all Islamist groups, the Brigades’ principal focus has shifted to Syria since the outbreak of the war. According to Jihadology’s Aaron Zelin, the Brigades have been actively engaged in the fighting there since at least August 2012, though they don’t appear to have anything like the prominence of other jihadist outfits like the Islamic State of al-Sham or Jabhat al-Nusra.

Nonetheless, there have for some time been indications that the group might attempt an ‘operation’ such as yesterday’s. In the summer of 2012, they released a “Message to the Shia of Lebanon,” imploring members of the sect to abandon the “criminal” Hezbollah and Amal leadership and cease their alliance with the “oppressive” Assad regime that threatened the “Sunni people,” warning that the “consequences” of siding with Damascus would “intensify upon you.” Similarly, after the roadside bomb in July the Brigades released a statement warning it was but one of “a series of attacks [to come] against Hezbollah that will include every part of Lebanon.”

Few took these threats seriously at the time. But after yesterday, when the group’s spokesman pledged that such “operations in Lebanon will continue” until the “withdrawal of [Hezbollah] from Syria” and the release of the Brigades’ members from Lebanese jails, Lebanon’s security agencies may well start paying them much closer attention henceforth.

Suicide slaughter at Iranian embassy

[Originally posted at NOW]

NOW reports from scene of blasts, which analysts say are likely linked to Syria developments.

There was still a bloodied body squirming on the ground when NOW arrived at Jerusalem Street Tuesday morning, surrounded by rescue workers frantically trying to lift the semi-conscious man onto a stretcher. The Lebanese army, in tandem with plain-clothed security forces including some wearing yellow armbands bearing the Hezbollah logo, had sealed off an adjacent fifty-meter stretch of the street outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut’s predominantly Shiite Jnah suburb, where earlier two suicide bombers had detonated over 50kg of explosives, killing 23 and wounding over 150.

In the minutes following the explosions, television stations aired disturbing footage of charred corpses sprawled before blazing rows of cars, the air thick with clouds of black smoke. By the time NOW arrived, the fires had been doused, but pools of blood still dotted the street, dyeing the countless shards of glass blown out of hundreds of windows from the surrounding apartment blocks. At least a dozen cars lay mangled and squashed. The residences nearest the blast had entire chunks of their balconies ripped off even five stories above the ground.

As the crowd of aid workers, journalists, and onlookers gradually thinned, residents headed indoors to begin the task of repairing their homes, and the sound of glass fragments being swept up could be heard for several blocks. “I heard both explosions very well, they were very powerful,” said one young man with a broom, who declined to give his name. Asked who he thought carried out the attack, he replied, “The terrorists, of course,” a generic reference to the various Sunni jihadi outfits opposed to Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as its ally, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

Indeed, the attacks were later claimed by exactly such a group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an al-Qaeda affiliate whose spokesman said on Twitter that such “operations in Lebanon will continue” until the “withdrawal of [Hezbollah] from Syria” and the release of the Brigades’ members from Lebanese jails. The group has previously taken credit for a roadside bomb targeting a Hezbollah convoy in the Beqaa Valley in July and a series of rocket launches at Israel in August.

Accordingly, some analysts told NOW the Jnah bombings were likely linked to recent developments in Syria, particularly the ongoing battles in the strategic Qalamoun region, one town of which was captured by Syrian regime forces Tuesday after three days of intense fighting.

“Recent Syrian government gains around Damascus, Aleppo, and in the northern Qalamoun have resulted in a further escalation in sectarian sentiment among Syria’s insurgent opposition,” said Charles Lister, analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Counterinsurgency Centre. “The apparent involvement of one or both of Hezbollah and Iranian military personnel in recent military gains makes the targeting of those actors’ assets abroad much more likely. As such, attacks like this one are likely to continue on a sporadic basis.”

Others, however, saw in the attacks a message intended more for Iran than Syria.

“My opinion is that it’s not related to Qalamoun. This is bigger than the Syria issue,” said Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst specializing in militant Islamist movements. “These explosions targeted the Iranian embassy on the eve of the negotiations with Iran on the nuclear file. It’s clear that this is a message to Iran and to the role of Iran in the region as a whole. If the negotiations reach an agreement, we are going to witness a lot of changes in terms of the relationship between Iran and world powers,” which the attacks aimed to forestall, Qassir told NOW.

Qassir also treated the Abdullah Azzam Brigades’ claim of responsibility with caution. “I don’t know, I don’t have any information on this. They took responsibility, but any Islamist group could be part of this plan.”

Assuming the Brigades’ claim is accurate, however, Lister told NOW it could bolster the relatively little-known group’s profile, further fuelling the level of violence in Lebanon.

“A ‘spectacular’ attack like this will be highly likely to encourage further recruitment into the group’s cause. This attack is a significant escalation – after months and months of speculation, an al-Qaeda-linked group has now underlined its involvement in the Syria-related Lebanese theatre. Short-term stability in Palestinian refugee camps” – from which the Brigades primarily recruit – “could feasibly suffer, as could the situation in already unstable towns such as Arsal on the Syrian border.”

Indeed, signs of greater pressure on Arsal – the key remaining crossing point for anti-regime militants between Lebanon and Syria – have already manifested in the hours following Tuesday’s bombings. In the late afternoon, regime warplanes launched air-to-surface missiles at the nearby village of Akabat al-Moubayda. Casualty figures were unavailable at the time of publishing.

Maya Gebeily contributed reporting.