Dissecting the problem

[Originally posted at NOW]

Regional crises revive ideas of communal segregation in Lebanon.

Graffiti in Beirut reading "Yes to federalism" is altered to read "Yes to secularism" (NOW/Alex Rowell)

As the mangled remains of the 22nd car to have exploded in Lebanon since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis lay smoldering in a mixed Sunni-Shiite Beirut neighborhood last Tuesday, one young male bystander told a television reporter he only had one thing to say. “It’s either them or us. We can’t live together.”

It was a statement of an exasperation felt by many Lebanese – an exasperation that is increasingly leading some to conclude that the country’s decades-old brand of sectarian coexistence has failed, and should be replaced with something that formalizes or to some extent reinforces segregation along communal lines. Adding momentum to these currents is the spectacle of raging Sunni-Shiite warfare elsewhere in the region, particularly in Syria and Iraq, where Islamist extremists have literally demolished the post-WWI border and declared the formation of a theocratic state. At the same time, Kurdish separatists have seized the city long coveted as the capital of their future state and insisted they won’t give it back. Surveying these “great changes and historical turns,” Lebanese Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt wrote last Monday of the need to “preserve General Gouraud’s Lebanon before it is too late.” (Gouraud was the French High Commissioner who in 1920 decreed the creation of Lebanon within its current borders.)

While few Lebanese seriously advocate the abolition of “General Gouraud’s Lebanon,” there is rising interest in ideas ranging from decentralization to regionalism to federalism. Significantly, enthusiasm no longer comes exclusively from the Christian community – a segment of which has advocated such measures since the 1975-90 civil war – but from a minority of Muslims as well.

At the extreme end are the militant Sunni factions calling openly for an Islamist statelet in the north. On Sunday, June 22, 2014, supporters of Salafist cleric Sheikh Salem al-Rafei in Tripoli held a demonstration during which they chanted, “We want an Islamic state.” Asked by NOW about the slogan, Rafei initially denied that it was intended to be taken literally, but later said he “believed in the Muslim khilafa [caliphate] regime […] this is the ideology I follow.” While he said the concept was “not applicable” in Lebanon, due to its religious diversity, he predicted “the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites will lead to the segmentation of Lebanon, just like Iraq and Syria will be divided into provinces […] The first [part of Lebanon] would be for those who want wilayat al-faqih (Iranian state ideology nominally advocated by Hezbollah) and the second for those who want a just state that assures equality for all its citizens – Sunnis, Druze, Christians, and independent Shiites.”

Rafei’s is a view firmly rejected by mainstream Sunni political factions, who officially oppose any such “segmentation” even in its mildest forms. “Federalism is an illusion,” said MP Ahmat Fatfat of the Future Movement. “Lebanon is a small country. The only solution is the state,” he told NOW.

Yet a minority within the Sunni community disagrees. “I am definitely a supporter of federalism,” said Nabil al-Halabi, a Sunni human rights lawyer, who told NOW the same fear of domination that previously drove Christians toward the idea was now duplicating itself among Sunnis, whose vulnerability “became more apparent” after the violent takeover by Hezbollah-affiliated militiamen of predominantly Sunni neighborhoods of Beirut in 2008. “Federalism will forbid any community from governing other communities.”

Nor is Halabi alone, according to Jean-Pierre Katrib, former spokesman of the now-defunct federalism advocacy group Loubnanouna (“Our Lebanon”).

“This is no longer a function of the Christian community alone,” Katrib told NOW. “You come across people from the Shiite community who are not hostile to the notion of federalism as they once were. You come across very senior Sunni figures – for reasons of confidentiality I cannot disclose their names, but I can tell you these are high-ranking, well-known Sunni figures, enjoying wide popularity – who welcome the idea. I’m saying this because I have met with these people at their request.” [Disclosure: Katrib is an employee of Quantum Communications, a sister company of NOW’s.]

Does it work?

To be sure, federalists remain a minority nationwide, and certainly have many detractors. Among the criticisms of federalism is that it simply does not solve the system’s core problems, and may even aggravate them.

“I don’t think it could work in Lebanon,” said Nadim Shehadi, associate fellow at Chatham House and former director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies at Oxford University. Shehadi points to the final years of the civil war, when the Christians in fact did control their own de facto canton in Mount Lebanon, yet partook in some of the worst violence of the entire 15 years – among themselves. “Controlling your own canton doesn’t necessarily mean homogeneity,” Shehadi told NOW. “So it doesn’t solve much.”

To this, advocates counter that federalism is less about cantonization than tackling inefficiency and promoting regional economic development.

“It’s not about separation or creating a shield for the Christians, because we don’t believe you can have Monaco in Jounieh and Kandahar in Tripoli,” said Albert Costanian, political bureau member of the Kataeb Party, who prefers the term “regionalism” to federalism. By electing regional representatives locally, rather than having them appointed by the central government, and giving those representatives fiscal and executive autonomy, Costanian told NOW that much of the chronic corruption of the central government could be avoided, while regions could pursue their own economic development programs without depending financially and administratively on Beirut.

Federalism or secularism?

Another common criticism of federalism is the argument that, by granting the premise that identity is fundamentally defined by sect, it perpetuates the same communal divisions that fuel the dysfunction and violence for which it purports to be the solution. As the slogan “Yes to federalism” has been spray-painted by graffiti activists across Beirut’s walls in recent months, it has elicited a counter-campaign by opponents, altering the text to “Yes to secularism.”

This dichotomy, according to Costanian, is a false one, akin to “comparing apples and oranges.” Indeed, he argues regionalism will “accompany the people’s march toward secularism” by abolishing sectarian quotas within regional governorates and allowing for regional legislation in favor of things like civil marriage. “Hopefully we will reach a totally secular system in a few years,” he told NOW.

By contrast, in Shehadi’s view, the two concepts cannot be married so easily. “When you have people of different identities on the same land, you have a choice between breaking down the boundaries or reinforcing them,” he told NOW. He cited the example of 19th-century cosmopolitan cities such as Smyrna, where for all the inter-communal mingling in marketplaces and public squares, each ethnic and religious group lived in segregated quarters, to which they would retreat and “lock the gates” at night.

“Of course,” says Shehadi, “in times of crisis, when people feel threatened, they become more sectarian and they want more extreme sectarian solutions.”

“But the bottom line question is, do you protect boundaries, or break them down totally?”

Myra Abdallah contributed reporting.

Tripoli figures skeptical of security plan

[Originally posted at NOW]

City leaders tell NOW plans to replicate Dahiyeh's security measures in Tripoli are fraught with complications.

The deployment of state security forces across dozens of new checkpoints in Beirut’s southern suburbs – intended to replace the controversial private measures taken by local Hezbollah strongmen – has sparked proposals to implement a similar move in the northern city of Tripoli.

Both Dahiyeh (as the southern suburbs are informally known) and Tripoli were struck by highly deadly car bombings in August, prompting a nationwide security clampdown that critics from both sides of the political divide argue has favored Dahiyeh at Tripoli’s expense. “Is what happened in Tripoli any less serious than what happened in Dahiyeh?”asked Caretaker Youth and Sports Minister Faisal Karami, one of Hezbollah’s relatively few allies in the northern city. “The people of Tripoli have the right to ask: Why is it that every time we ask for security measures […] we are told […] that we must make do with what we have?”

Accordingly, Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati – himself a Tripoli native – has called for a meeting Friday with Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel along with security officials and other politicians to discuss the possibility of replicating the Dahiyeh plan in Tripoli.

No specific details of the proposals on the table have thus far emerged. Yet leading political figures in the city told NOW that while they would welcome effective measures by state institutions to tackle Tripoli’s chronic instability, they were highly skeptical that anything meaningful would come out of Friday’s discussions.

“This is a déjà vu phenomenon, because we have seen previous plans about fourteen or fifteen times over the past few years in Tripoli, and many of them were really serious, and we as citizens and politicians don’t understand why they have ceased to exist all of a sudden,” said Future Movement MP Mustafa Alloush. “What we [typically see] in Tripoli is all of a sudden we have a security plan, thousands of troops and security officers gather for a week or two, maybe a month, and then it disappears.”

“I don’t see anything new,” agreed former MP Mosbah al-Ahdab of the Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement, who added that such efforts have invariably been sabotaged in the past by corruption and political patronage, some of it involving Miqati himself. “Miqati has requested the state many times to make this security plan in Tripoli, and it’s always secretive, and at the end of the day it ends up having roadblocks stopping people, but those who should be arrested have permits to pass and are not allowed to be arrested.”

“If Miqati wants to […] do something, let him stop financing fighters,” said Ahdab, echoing prior accusations that the caretaker prime minister is a prominent sponsor of various armed groups in the city.

Adding to the complications is the question of whether these militias, many of which distrust state security forces, would accept the deployment of the army in their quarters. In June, gunmen clashed with the army when it intervened to quell the latest in a long series of battles between the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods.

Sheikh Salem al-Rafei, a cleric with ties to many of Bab al-Tabbaneh’s militants who narrowly escaped assassination in one of the car bombs last month, told NOW he did not know enough about the security plan to comment on whether or not he would support it. He implied, however, that it was unnecessary because there were no checkpoints comparable to Hezbollah’s in Dahiyeh to replace.

“I do not understand the nature of this security plan because we don’t have ‘self-security’ in Tripoli, as they did in Dahiyeh,” Rafei told NOW. He added that he thought investigating who carried out the previous car bombs was a more pressing concern.

Alloush, for his part, opined that if militants would actively oppose the security plan, that in itself would only underscore the urgent need for it to be executed.

“If we have to wait for the agreement of militiamen to surrender their arms, we will be in a comedy, not a state.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

Among the believers

[Originally posted at NOW]

NOW talks to Nada Abdelsamad, whose new documentary looks at Lebanon’s increasingly violent Salafist movement

While many foreigners might readily associate Lebanese Islamism with Hezbollah – the Shiite militia-cum-party’s “military wing” was designated a terror organization by the European Union last month – the past year has seen an unprecedented surge in violence from Sunni Islamist groups, many of whom draw on a militant interpretation of a theological school known as Salafism. Representing a marginal fringe of Lebanon’s Sunni community, historically Salafists were mostly confined to the northern city of Tripoli.

However, in June, Salafist fighters waged a bloody two-day battle with the Lebanese army in Sidon, killing over a dozen soldiers. And on Thursday, an obscure Sunni extremist group claimed responsibility for a car bomb in Dahiyeh that took thirty civilian lives – the deadliest car bomb since the 1975-90 civil war and the most violent ever attack by Sunni militants against the Lebanese Shiite community.

In an attempt to shine a light on the often murky methods and motivations of these Salafists, journalist and author Nada Abdelsamad recently produced a video documentary (see above link) based on extensive interviews with the movement’s leading figures and their devotees. NOW spoke with Abdelsamad about her findings and where the Salafists’ future might be heading.

NOW: Clearly, Lebanon has seen a marked rise in Salafism-related violence in recent weeks. What do you think are the relations between the people you met and the ones carrying out these attacks?

Nada Abdelsamad: Those that I met were clear about their target: they want a khilafa [caliphate, or Islamic state] in Lebanon. We can’t say if there’s a link between those I met and those who are targeting Shiite areas because we still don’t know who is doing this. Is it even a Lebanese faction? We don’t know.

NOW: So you don’t know who the group calling itself the ‘Brigades of Aisha, Mother of the Believers,’ that claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack in south Beirut, could be?

Abdelsamad: No, the groups I met were well-known in Tripoli. They are not hiding behind group names.

NOW: Do Salafists differ in terms of their willingness to use violence (i.e. are some jihadist and others non-jihadist)?

Abdelsamad: This is what the film tried to answer, this was one of my main questions. They said there is no difference between Salafists. They might be jihadists if they were obliged to be, but the only jihadist faction now is the one led by a guy who doesn’t like to be in the media and nobody knows about him, called Hossam Sabbagh. He’s the only jihadist, although [Sheikh Dai al-Islam] al-Shahhal said he has been trying to build an armed faction after what happened in Beirut in May 2008. This is not only what al-Shahhal said but what [Sheikh Salem] al-Rafei said too.

NOW: Regarding Sabbagh, you mention in the documentary that he previously fought in Afghanistan. Is the war in Syria today likely to produce a future generation of Lebanese jihadists like him?

Abdelsamad: They said that only five people [from among Lebanon’s Salafists] have been killed in Syria. Do you think a huge number of young people from Tripoli are fighting in Syria? If there is involvement, it’s not on a big scale.

NOW: Just two weeks ago there were reports that two brothers from Tripoli had blown themselves up in a suicide bombing in Homs.

Abdelsamad: Yes. You have to add those two to three before. So in total there are only five. They are not hiding their call to fight in Syria, but are people going there? I’m not sure.

It’s different from Hezbollah. Hezbollah is an organized party, but Salafists are not so clearly organized. They can call on people to go and fight in Syria, but people can decide whether they want to go or not. This is unlike Hezbollah, whose leader made a political decision [to intervene in Syria].

NOW: One interesting moment was when you visited the studio of the Irtiqaa (“upgrading”) radio station. How significant are things like this in spreading the Salafist message?

Abdelsamad: It’s important because now they have institutions, radios, schools, universities, and they’re becoming more complete parties and this is what they want. As I told you, their main target is to impose a khilafa, and they think a khilafa is coming.

NOW: What other media do they make use of?

Abdelsamad: Every sheikh has his website, and you have all the prayers, all the Friday sermons online, in video and print. They are well-organized.

NOW: It was also fascinating to see women taking on activist roles, even giving speeches to fellow women promoting the cause.

Abdelsamad: I think we didn’t know about them a lot, but the women in the Salafist movement are prominent. One of them I interviewed, Umm Hudaifa, gives sermons in one of the mosques, and many people attend every week. These women are part of Lebanese society now.

NOW: Some argue that Salafist militants in, for example, Bab al-Tabbaneh are not truly motivated by religion, but instead are poor people who fight primarily because they get paid to do so. You’ve seen these people up close: do you think this is the case, or are they sincere believers in the ideology?

Abdelsamad: We have to look at the Salafist movement away from the ongoing fight in Tripoli. Salafism is not growing because of the fight with Jabal Mohsen, the movement is growing in the whole region because you have an Islamist Spring, you have the fighting in Syria and Hezbollah’s involvement there. They think Hezbollah is killing Sunnis. This is the main point.

NOW: Some also argue that Salafist ideology is foreign to Lebanon and has only spread due to financial inducements from the Gulf countries. What do you say to that?

Abdelsamad: They don’t hide it. If you ask them who is paying for these schools and movements, they say that they have direct money from Saudi Arabia, from Qatar, from NGOs in Kuwait. The Ministry of Awqaf [“financial endowments”] in Saudi Arabia is paying these schools. It’s not something they hide.

NOW: Finally, is Salafism a long-term threat to Lebanon’s democracy and security, or is it something the country can coexist with?

Abdelsamad: I cannot predict but it’s clear that the Salafists do not believe in Lebanon’s constitution. That’s why they don’t run in elections. They don’t seem to want to impose their khilafa by force, because they know that Lebanon is different. But, still, the khilafa is their aim.

Sidon's Salafists eager for battle

[Originally posted at NOW]

Fadel Shaker was in a talkative mood when NOW found him standing outside Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir’s Bilal Bin Rabah mosque on Wednesday afternoon. The former celebrity pop singer turned arch-partisan of the Sidon cleric was with half a dozen young men also sporting Salafist-style beards, and could scarcely have been less reticent when approached for questions.

Would he be joining the “Free Resistance Brigades,” the new Sidon-based militia established by Assir on Monday? “Of course!” was his reply, quickly echoed by the rest of the men. NOW then asked if he and his comrades would also be heading to fight in Syria, as per Assir’s call for “jihad” against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and Hezbollah. The response was equally prompt: “Insha’Allah! [God willing]”

At this, Shaker grew animated. “All Shiites are brothers of whores!” he declared in a raised voice. “Write that down!” NOW asked if he indeed meant all Shiites, or was only referring to Hezbollah – a distinction typically made by Assir. “No: all of them! Shiites are the same as the bottom of my shoe!” he replied, to much laughter from his comrades. He continued cursing the sect for another thirty seconds or so, turning his ire on the late Iranian Grand Ayatollah Khomeini before NOW thanked him and parted ways.

In his apartment facing the mosque, Assir himself adopted a distinctly more restrained tone. “We’re not here to fight the Shia. The goal of the Free Resistance Brigades is self-defense – against Israel, if they choose to attack us, and against Hezbollah if they do,” the sheikh told NOW. “We have said many times that we refuse fighting and causing civil war in Lebanon.”

Assir has been talking of starting a militia since last November, and its formation is still in the planning stages, he told NOW. At present, he says, around 300 Lebanese and Palestinians from Sidon and its suburbs have signed on to join – a number he hopes will grow to several thousands (registration takes place outside his mosque after evening prayers) – but no formal training has taken place. He confirmed that he and his sons would personally be members of the Brigades.

These are not necessarily, however, the same people Assir intends to wage jihad across the border. “The people addressed in the fatwa[religious decree] for jihad are those living on the border, because it’s easier for them to access Syria.” He added, though, that “if there’s a need, we will back them up.”

Assir’s call to arms – seconded by prominent Tripoli cleric Sheikh Salem al-Rafei – comes at a time of intense fighting in and around Syria’s Qusayr, a rebel-held town roughly 10km from Lebanon’s northeastern border. The battle for Qusayr, which pits regime loyalists including an estimated 800-1,200 Hezbollah members against opposition militants, was reportedly described by Assad himself as the “main battle” in all of Syria at present.

“Hezbollah is fighting in Qusayr, and the Lebanese state isn’t saying a word against them,” Assir told NOW. “We’ve stayed away for two years, but now with Hezbollah attacking our Syrian brothers from one side and the regime attacking them from another, they’re under siege. We have to support them, this is a matter of shari’a [Islamic law].”

This was also the line taken by Rafei, who pledged Monday to “send men and weapons in support of our Sunni brothers in Qusayr.” Assir told NOW that due to Rafei’s substantial influence in Tripoli, he expects he will send over a thousand fighters across the border. Rafei could not be reached by NOW for comment.

With the line thus blurring between Syria’s and Lebanon’s fighters (“We say to our Syrian brothers, your war is our war,” as Rafei put it) and the prospect of organized sectarian war between Lebanese Sunnis and Shiites in Syria, analysts tell NOW the Assir-Rafei plan may bode ill for Lebanon’s security.

“This definitely drags Lebanon further into the Syrian conflict,” said Dr. Imad Salamey, professor of political science at the Lebanese American University. “We now have two sides in Lebanon – Hezbollah, which is already fully engaged in the fighting, and the pro-opposition Sunni groups promising similar military engagement. If things continue on this course, it may eventually bring the border villages and mixed Sunni-Shiite areas in the Beqaa Valley into similar conflict. This is really alarming and dangerous.”

Moreover, argues Salamey, “whether they know it or not, [Assir and Rafei] are playing into the Syrian regime’s hands, by turning the crisis into a region-wide one, which will lead the international community to prefer a political settlement in the regime’s favor.”

With that said, however, Salamey adds that the extent of the damage may be limited by Assir’s still-marginal following within the Sunni community. “Assir’s significance is not as it seems in the press. Sure, he can send some fighters to Syria, but this is also him trying to attract some attention and demonstrate his strategic relevance in swaying politics in Lebanon and Syria.”

“He and Rafei are trying to show that Hezbollah is not the only party that can play the ‘Syria’ card.”

Yara Chehayed contributed reporting.

The Free Lebanese Army?

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

Though rejected by the Sunni establishment, the idea is endorsed by extremists.

Sunni fighters on the ground in Bab al-Tabbaneh on Wednesday (AFP)

Following a week of pronounced anxieties in Lebanon brought on by the kidnapping of 20 Syrians and a Turkish national by the self-described “military wing” of the influential Shiite Moqdad clan, Tuesday’s reports of the formation of a “Sunni military council” by a prominent Tripoli Salafist—echoing calls in May for the creation of a “Free Lebanese Army”—had many in the country fearing the worst.

Those fears now look to have been somewhat misplaced, as Sheikh Salem al-Rafei—the cleric said to have announced the formation during his Friday sermon—appears to have backtracked amid near-unanimous condemnation of the idea from the Sunni establishment. “All of the officials and sons of Tripoli reject the idea of forming military councils,” said Future bloc MP Mohammad Kabbara on Wednesday after discussing the issue with Rafei. Similarly, the Tripoli mufti, Sheikh Malek Shaar, categorically ruled it out on Friday, while Future bloc MP Ahmad Fatfat called Thursday for “turning Tripoli into an arms-free city.” Rafei himself declined to talk to NOW Lebanon about the matter, though he has told NOW in the past that he too advocates an arms-free Tripoli.

At the same time, some of the more hardline Sunni Islamists have openly and enthusiastically endorsed the idea. Despite telling NOW in June that he opposed all non-state weapons, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, the former UK leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir and founder of Salafist-Jihadist outfits al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK, now says, “I support the establishment of a military council for the Sunnis of Bab al-Tabbaneh […] not just in the North, but in the wider region. Everyone has weapons in Lebanon: the Internal Security Forces, the army, Hezbollah, Amal, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Palestinians. It is only the Sunnis who are without arms. So when Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir’s demands [to rid the country of non-state weapons] were not met, we had to say that we will arm ourselves in return.”

When contacted for comment, Assir was equivocal, ostensibly rejecting the military council idea while not materially differing from Bakri’s position. “In no way are we creating a military council, nor do we approve of it,” he told NOW. “What Rafei meant was that in case the government cannot protect us, we will have to take measures to protect ourselves.”

Bakri made no such evasions. Asked to explain how the council would function in practice, he asserted its activities would not be aggressive. “It will not be formed to face a certain group or party but only for self-defense and as a contingency in the event of an attack. We have seen the army’s failure to carry out its duty of putting an end to the [Moqdad] kidnappings. Also consider that Syrian tanks are shelling our borders and are entering certain areas constantly and making arrests. The military council is a reaction and is not an organization or party, nor does it aim to replace the state or the army.”

Sheikh Nabil Rahim, who was arrested in 2008 on charges of belonging to Fatah al-Islam, essentially agreed with Bakri, although he claimed that Rafei’s original proposal was non-sectarian. “I listened to the statements of Sheikh Rafei, and he said there should be a military council for all sects, including Shiites, Christians and Sunnis. We are with the state and the army, but this is in self-defense in case they cannot provide protection for their citizens,” he told NOW.

In any case, for actual fighters on the ground in Tripoli, these debates may be largely academic. A Sunni militiaman from the Qobbeh neighborhood who preferred not to be named scoffed when asked about the military council, dismissing it as a rhetorical retort to the “military wing” of the Moqdads. Though Rafei is held in high esteem in Tripoli, and could certainly mobilize militants if he wished, the idea of a formally structured paramilitary outfit for all Sunnis in Lebanon was fantasy, he told NOW.

Moreover, as the tragic re-eruptions of violence in the city over the past week have amply demonstrated, the Sunnis of Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh have already had a de facto militia for quite some time. In the words of the Qobbeh fighter, “What difference does it make if we call it a ‘military council’ now?”

Bassem Nemeh, Assem Bazzi and Nadine Elali contributed reporting.