Monday 10 June 2013
As Shia Hezbollah fighters rush to Assad’s aid, Lebanon is fighting a desperate battle to stop the menacing advance of Sunni rebels in the opposite direction
The Lebanese army claims there is a “plot” to drag Lebanon into the Syrian war. The ‘plot’ – ‘al-moamarer’ – is a feature of all Arab states. Plots come two-a-penny in the Middle East. What the military authorities really fear is that Sunni Muslim Salafist groups – perhaps paid by the same Gulf backers as the Sunni rebels fighting the Assad regime – have embedded themselves in the Lebanese population. The army suspects they exist deep in the northern Bekaa valley around the village of Arsal and in the northern city of Tripoli, as well as in Beirut and Sidon.