Hezbollah's next steps unclear as bomb revives fears in Dahiyeh

[Originally posted at NOW]

Iraq situation seen as potential factor in attack that reveals limits of Hezbollah’s and security forces’ power.

BIR AL-ABED, Lebanon: NOW was queuing at a Lebanese army checkpoint at the entrance to Beirut’s southern suburbs when the news broke over the radio Friday morning. A suicide bombing had struck a police checkpoint in Dahr al-Baydar, some 35km away on the road to Damascus, putting an end to a 12-week lull in a series of such deadly attacks to have hit Lebanon since the previous summer. Security forces would begin immediately sealing roads across the country, the radio presenter then said, in light of “information” that a number of other explosives-rigged cars were presently dispersed and ready to blow in “several neighborhoods.”

It was perhaps unsurprising, then, that once inside “Dahiyeh,” as the southern suburbs are collectively known, NOW found the streets emptying quickly as residents made their way indoors. While some of the young men still loitering on the sidewalks in the Bir al-Abed neighborhood put on brave faces, telling NOW the suicide bomb was “nothing,” others admitted to renewed fears that the attacks would once again strike in the heart of Dahiyeh: of 21 vehicle explosions in Lebanon since the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, six have been in Dahiyeh, two in Bir al-Abed itself.

“How’s the situation? Look, here’s how the situation is,” said a jeweler who would only identify himself as Hassan, pointing at live footage of the destruction in Dahr al-Baydar on the television inside his store. “The world powers, America and Russia, are pulling strings” – he made a puppet master gesture – “and we civilians are paying the price.”

“Certainly, the fear is back,” said Hassan’s assistant, who declined to give his name. Even before Friday’s bombing, he told NOW, persistent rumors of attacks – such as an alleged plot to target hospitals in Dahiyeh earlier in the week – had kept many residents’ nerves on edge. “Look at all the shops on this street, they’re offering 50% discounts but still they’re empty, because customers are too scared to come here.”

That alleged hospital plot had reportedly sparked one of the largest deployments of Hezbollah militiamen onto Dahiyeh’s streets in months. Now, after Friday’s attack, residents told NOW they expected further security measures to be taken by the party in the area. NOW saw gunmen wearing the party’s signature black t-shirts standing guard outside several mosques, but beyond that no additional measures were immediately evident.

Indeed, analysts told NOW they did not expect the party to do significantly more than it already is doing – namely, securing Dahiyeh, coordinating with the Lebanese army in attempts to neutralize Al-Qaeda-linked groups both within the country and on the border, and continuing its military intervention in the Syrian war, which the party controversially argues is of benefit to Lebanon’s stability.

“There won’t be much of a new reaction from Hezbollah,” said Ali al-Amin, an analyst and Dahiyeh resident. “Except that, after [the takeover of significant Iraqi territory by Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) jihadists,] the Iraqi Shiite groups fighting alongside Hezbollah will move back to Iraq, and new Hezbollah units will be called to Syria to replace them.” This is consistent with what NOW’s South Lebanon correspondent first reported last week.

Amin added the party will seek to capitalize on the bombing, and the heightened fears it has generated, to further reinforce its retrospective justifications for intervening in Syria. In his most recent remarks, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said “ISIS would be in Beirut now” were it not for Hezbollah’s military offensive.

Other observers believe Friday’s attack signals a new danger deriving from the Iraq situation, suggesting events may be moving beyond Hezbollah’s ability to control them.

“Of course, there will be heightened security,” said Qassem Kassir, another analyst residing in Dahiyeh. “But it’s no longer just about Hezbollah. Today’s explosion didn’t target Hezbollah: it targeted the Internal Security Forces. The [alleged threat against Beirut’s UNESCO building] wasn’t targeting Hezbollah, it was targeting [Amal Movement leader] Nabih Berri. It’s no longer just Hezbollah or the Shiite community that’s at risk. Now everyone is.”

In Kassir’s view, the bomb was intended as a message from ISIS and its affiliates that events in Iraq will have an impact across the entire region.

“It’s as if, after what happened in Iraq, groups everywhere linked to ISIS felt they should do something,” he told NOW.

“Iraq portends more to come, in Dahiyeh and outside Dahiyeh. They will target everyone.”

Myra Abdallah contributed reporting.

[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.

Dahiyeh residents mostly unfazed by blast

[Originally posted at NOW]

Damaged cars across the street from the blast site (NOW/Alex Rowell)

The flames that had engulfed over a dozen cars in an outdoor parking lot as a result of Tuesday morning’s explosion in the Bir al-Abid neighborhood of Haret Hreik, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, had been doused by the time NOW arrived at the scene, but the damage wrought by the reported 35kg bomb planted under a car was extensive.

For at least a hundred meters down the adjacent residential and commercial street, the sidewalks were smothered in glass shards blown out of the now-bare window frames of shops, parked cars, and multi-story apartments. The awnings of a bakery and an accessories shop across the street from the blast site sat mangled like collapsed construction girders, while the wall of the car park itself had been punched in with a meter-wide crater.

As hundreds of local residents flooded the streets, snapping camera-phone photos and straining to get a view of the charred car park, a team of private security officials carrying walkie-talkies and wearing red baseball caps – presumably members of Hezbollah, the preeminent party in the southern suburbs – deployed on the scene, urging the crowd over megaphones to disperse. Meanwhile, the team of security officials prevented non-Hezbollah-affiliated journalists from entering or even photographing the blast site. “Only take pictures in that direction,” said one to NOW, pointing away from the car park. “Stay here,” said another, motioning in vain for a colleague to come over, before getting distracted elsewhere and forgetting.

According to eyewitnesses NOW spoke to at an electronics store near the blast, a man driving a red Nissan 4x4 had parked in the lot that morning. When asked by the concierge how long he planned to park, adding that more money would be required for a lengthy stay, the man apparently paid the extra without specifying a time. Minutes later, said the eyewitnesses, the same Nissan car exploded.

Others nearby were more preoccupied with personal trauma. A middle-aged woman sitting in an adjacent shop breathed heavily as she recalled her fears for her niece, who had suffered minor injuries from the blast. “Thank God she’s all right,” she repeated as NOW moved onward.

However, despite injuring over 50 people, the bomb did not appear to have dampened local spirits in general. “Wait a second,” said one resident as NOW was preparing to take a photo of a smashed store façade. “Let the Sayyid [Hassan Nasrallah] be there first,” he said with a grin as he placed a photo of the Hezbollah Secretary-General on a shelf. In adjacent Dahiyeh neighborhoods, residents appeared entirely unfazed by the bomb, with men, women, and children walking around as though nothing unusual had happened.

Indeed, the only tangible ill-will from the crowd at the blast site was directed at Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, who arrived at around 1pm to heckles from Hezbollah supporters, from whom he took refuge in a nearby building for around twenty minutes. Video footage later emerged showing him being escorted to safety by police under cover fire from Hezbollah gunmen. The reason for this hostile reception is unclear.

Nor, as of Tuesday evening, have the perpetrators of the attack been established. The Free Syrian Army (FSA), which has previously claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on pro-Hezbollah towns in the Beqaa Valley, denied responsibility for Tuesday’s car bomb, saying the blame fell “directly or indirectly” on Hezbollah and the Syrian regime. Though rebel brigades have threatened in the past to attack Dahiyeh, the FSA also denied involvement in a dual rocket attack on the area in May.

Meanwhile, politicians on both sides of the Lebanese divide accused Israel of involvement, with Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar saying the attack “bears the fingerprint of the Israeli enemy and its tools,” and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri describing it as an “[attempt] by the Israeli enemy to push [Lebanon] to strife by organizing terrorist attacks.”

Yara Chehayed and Vivianne El Khawly contributed reporting.