Abra fiercely divided after Assir defeat

[Originally posted at NOW, with slideshow of photos from the scene]

Cars roasted to the bare metal, with Assir's mosque in the background (NOW/Alex Rowell)

The apartment block in which Assir's mosque is housed, seen from the south (NOW/Alex Rowell)

Stepping through the wreckage of Sidon’s Abra neighborhood Tuesday, the once-quiet residential street which until Monday housed the mosque and operational headquarters of Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir looks as though it has been struck simultaneously by a tornado and a series of lightning bolts. The windowless, tireless remains of cars roasted to the bare metal sit beneath balconies charred jet-black by fire. Craters the size of fruit bowls punctuate the tarmac, the results of the innumerable RPGs whose casings litter the floor, adding to the layers of rubble, shattered glass, and blood.

Even on the parallel street, Abra’s main commercial thoroughfare, the heavy machine gun cartridges, bullet-speckled windows, and toasted vehicles extend for hundreds of meters in both directions. From this angle, one sees entire wall panels blown off the multi-story apartment block above Assir’s Bilal bin Rabah mosque, which is otherwise thoroughly mangled and punctured by rocket strikes. Solemn as the scene is, it hasn’t stopped some enterprising Lebanese from seeing an opportunity: tucked under the windshield wiper of one smashed-up Mercedes is a crisp business card, promising a highly competitive price for repair.

For the residents re-opening their shops for the first time since clashes broke out Sunday, the defeat of Assir’s militiamen at the hands of the Lebanese army (and, reportedly, Hezbollah-affiliated forces) has sharply polarized opinions, with some deflated, some delighted, and most somewhere in between.

“We feel sorry for the people who died, especially in the army,” said a roast chicken vendor whom NOW previously interviewed on Friday. “The people who died from Assir’s side were also good people, but they got brainwashed.”

“Fine, the army got rid of Assir, but they left us with the [Hezbollah-affiliated] Resistance Brigades, who are also thugs,” said a resident living just outside the mosque complex. “We want all weapons to be with the state only. We don’t want Hezbollah’s ‘resistance,’ because their idea of resistance is a lie.”

Others disagreed. “We are with the army and Hezbollah to stop Israel, which is the real enemy,” said a sweets vendor, who claimed to be Sunni although his arm bore a tattoo of Zulfiqar, the sword of Imam Ali, the reverence of whom is most commonly associated with Shiite Islam. “We love [Syrian President] Bashar [al-Assad], because he gave full support to us during the fight against Israel. In Lebanon, there is too much segregation, between Sunnis and Shiites, etc., but the army is united. Priority number one is to follow the army.”

Just meters away, NOW encountered a group of youths whose views could scarcely have been more different.

“Today, we are sad, because we are pro-Assir. This army is not a Lebanese army, it’s Hezbollah’s and Iran’s army,” said one.

Asked what they think Assir – whose whereabouts remain unknown – will do next, they spoke enthusiastically of revenge.

“God willing, he is in Syria now. Hopefully he’ll finish off the [Assad] regime and then come back,” said one.

“This is not the end, this is just the beginning,” said another. “The Free Syrian Army will come back and help Assir defeat Hezbollah. For Syrian people, Hezbollah is now the number one enemy, even more than Bashar. Syrians remember how in 2006 they took in Lebanese refugees with hospitality, and now those same refugees are killing them in Syria.”

Nor, despite Assir’s vow to stay in the mosque until “martyrdom,” were these supporters disappointed by his decision to flee. “He fled because if he was martyred yesterday, his movement would be finished. He only lost the battle, not the war.”

Others, too, gave indications that further unrest may yet be in store for Abra.

“People are only hating each other even more now,” said the chicken vendor. “Earlier today, there was a fight between a Sunni and a Shiite. Later, a Shiite youth walked past us and made a ‘victory’ sign.”

Indeed, for the first time since Assir’s movement gained local prominence in late 2011, on Tuesday Hezbollah supporters were able to openly display their allegiance. As NOW spoke to the youths, a car drove down the busy main thoroughfare playing a loud recording of a fiery speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. And on the devastated parallel street, one block away from the Bilal bin Rabah mosque, a large Hezbollah flag appeared on a balcony – apparently the same balcony that had been attacked by Assir’s gunmen a week earlier, sparking the clashes that anticipated the heavier ones that followed on Sunday.

“They’re humiliating us,” said a car mechanic, referring to the flag. “Doesn’t Hezbollah have weapons? Doesn’t the Amal Movement have weapons? OK, then, why am I as a Sunni not allowed to have weapons?”

It was precisely such sentiments of sectarian victimhood that Assir repeatedly emphasized in his weekly sermons and public speeches. Evidently, the frustrations that fuelled his movement have not disappeared with him.

Yara Chehayed contributed reporting.

Sidon residents brace for further violence

[Originally posted at NOW]

Damage to the outer walls of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir's mosque complex in Abra, which one of his gunmen said was caused by RPG fire from Haaret Saida (NOW/Alex Rowell)

Rina Hassan has only just returned to her apartment in Sidon’s Abra neighborhood, four days after fleeing heavy gun battles that raged on her street between partisans of Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir and those of the Hezbollah-affiliated Resistance Brigades, leaving one dead.

“When it started, [Assir’s] fighters were under my house. They blocked the street with burning oil so no cars could get in or out, and then began firing RPGs and machine guns non-stop. For two hours, I sat in the corner of my bedroom because it was the only room with no windows.”

Terrified and alone in the house, Hassan then received a call from her son imploring her to come to the comparative safety of his restaurant nearby, which has an underground kitchen.

“He came to my front door and said, ‘Close your eyes, don’t look around, it will just take two minutes.’ Getting there was a real risk. We stayed for two more hours in that kitchen with two fighters outside firing M16s at any car that approached.”

When negotiations between Assir and the city’s Mufti, Sheikh Salim Sousan, brought the fighting to a close, Hassan decided to leave Sidon for her native southern village.

“I called a friend who had a friend involved with Assir’s movement, and he told us of a safe exit route. We had to tell them exactly what cars we would be in so they would know it was us. Many people in Abra were doing the same thing.”

“Today, I returned to Sidon, because I heard that Assir had agreed to postpone any military action for now. But I’ve prepared a bag in the house. The moment I feel tensions are rising again, I’ll get out of here.”

Hassan’s attitude is a widespread one in the city today, which residents fear could become the site of increasingly frequent and bloody clashes in future. Sheikh Maher Hammoud, a pro-Hezbollah cleric who survived an alleged assassination attempt in Sidon earlier this month, accused Assir on Thursday of wanting to turn Sidon into a “new Tripoli,” referring to the northern city that for years has witnessed repeated bouts of deadly sectarian violence.

Certainly, Abra locals NOW spoke to on Friday felt worse was yet to come. “There will be clashes again, of course,” said a roast chicken vendor directly across the street from Assir’s Bilal bin Rabah mosque. “Sheikh Assir agreed to postpone them until after school examinations [concluding on 6 July]. Next time, the fighting will be more intense, yes.”

Assir himself also appears to be taking precautions. The side-street leading up to his mosque now sports a new metal barrier, flanked by heavy concrete blocks and sandbags. A friendly young man, possibly in his teens, raises the barrier to allow a car to enter the complex. Like the two men standing on the corner behind him, he carries an AK-47, evidently undeterred by the heavy deployment of Lebanese Army troops on the adjacent street below. No, he says, we can’t take photos of him. But if we like, we can snap the large new holes on the building’s exterior – the results, he claims, of RPGs fired by the Resistance Brigades from Haaret Saida, the predominantly Shiite quarter two kilometers to the southwest.

In Haaret Saida, where Hezbollah and Amal flags line the streets, another restaurateur initially shrugs off the prospect of further clashes before launching an animated speech about how dangerous they could become.

“The problem of sectarian hatred here is huge. In Sidon, we have every sect: Sunnis, Shiites, Druze, Christians, Palestinians. These Islamists are playing with fire. Since when did they care about school exams? Are children’s exams more important than children dying?”

NOW also spoke to the mayor of Haaret Saida, Samih al-Zein, who was the target of a public death threat from the celebrity Assir partisan, former pop singer Fadel Shaker.

“I made a formal complaint to the judiciary,” he said with regards to the threat. “The attorney general and the security apparatus will deal with this. We don’t have a personal reaction – we won’t sink to that level.”

Al-Zein played down the possibility of further clashes, implying that Hezbollah and Amal would seek to avoid confronting Assir.

“We won’t respond [to further provocations] because we won’t give them the chance to have sectarian fitna [strife].” He added that Assir’s movement was “too small to attack us.”

That is, in effect, the view shared by analyst Hazem al-Amin, author of The Lonely Salafi, who told NOW the chances of Sidon’s violence reaching the levels seen in Tripoli are slim at the moment.

“Assir is weaker than his opponents in Sidon, and the deciding party is Hezbollah, not Assir. If Hezbollah wants to create tension, it will. However, Sidon is an important road to the South, so it is not now in their interests to create clashes there.”

Al-Amin added the situation in Sidon would be largely determined by events in Syria.

“We’re operating on Syrian realities. The essential [factor in Tuesday’s clashes] was the results that Hezbollah has had in [Syria]. This has created a tense environment, which will continue and maybe increase – but the full-on explosion isn’t for now.”

Some of the above names have been changed at interviewees’ requests.

Yara Chehayed and Maya Gebeily contributed reporting.