Syrian War Plays Out Along a Street in Lebanon
Syrian War Plays Out Along a Street in Lebanon
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: August 23, 2012
TRIPOLI, Lebanon — The Alawite snipers here fire from behind tires in
bombed-out apartment buildings as posters of President Bashar al-Assad
of Syria
flap in the breeze. The Sunnis just down the hill set up their own
gunmen behind sandbags near flags for the Free Syrian Army.
Moises Saman for The New York Times
Sunni fighters looked at an Alawite firing position in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Thursday.
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Moises Saman for The New York Times
A Sunni fighter hurried past an exposed alley in Bab al-Tabbaneh.
Moises Saman for The New York Times
A stray bullet paralyzed Mehdi Sharham, 16. “We have
nothing to do with all of this,” his father said.
One thoroughfare divides them: Syria Street. And since Monday night, 13
people have been killed here in battles that are less about the street
than about the country for which it is named.
“This will only end when the Syrian regime falls,” said Abu Hamad, 45, a
commander on the Sunni side with a long beard and new black Nikes. “We
are waiting for Assad to go; he’s the head and when he’s gone” — he
pointed toward the Alawite area — “the tail will die as well.”
These two poor, adjacent neighborhoods have been defined by volleys of
gunfire since at least the 1980s, when Syria occupied Lebanon and Sunnis
resisted. In both areas, faded posters honor fighters killed long
before Syria erupted 18 months ago.
But the civil war next door has changed the dynamic.
Damascus is only a two-and-a-half-hour drive away, and each side here
now invokes Syria to explain the intensified attacks and counterattacks
that have become increasingly common here over the past few months.
The Alawites, a Shiite offshoot to which President Assad belongs, say
they feel more threatened. Ali Feddah, 30, a spokesman for the main
Alawite political party in Lebanon, accuses Syrian rebels of coming into
this city to “practice against us.” In an interview on Saturday in a
windowless office behind a clothing store on the main street of the
Alawite area, Jabal Mohsen, Mr. Feddah predicted that the fighting would
escalate because Sunnis had been provoking Alawites with insults.
“Things are bad and getting worse,” he said, folding his hands,
revealing a missing finger. Militants guarded the door. A picture of his
brother, killed recently here, hung on the wall. “Fighting in the
streets is not something we want to be dragged into.”
But whether by intention, zeal or accident, the war in Syria is
increasingly being woven into Lebanon, and vice versa. Hezbollah, the
Shiite militant group, has been accused of fighting in Syria on behalf
of the Assad government; some of the Sunni commanders here in Tripoli
boast that several hundred of their own men have gone there to fight Mr.
Assad’s forces.
To experts, none of this is a surprise. Syria and Lebanon have always
lived a porous existence; centuries ago, Tripoli was a port for
Damascus, and Syria has long considered Lebanon to be a creation of
European colonialism that should not exist as a separate country.
How well this nearly stateless country can handle the pressure from
Syria’s war and escalating sectarianism is a growing concern. In New
York on Wednesday, the United Nations political chief, Jeffrey D.
Feltman, told the Security Council that as the crisis in Syria has
deteriorated, “the situation in Lebanon has become more precarious.”
Even Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has issued a warning.
“Reconsider the idea that says there is a definite situation in Lebanon
which is under control,” he said Friday, in a message that could also be
read as an effort to distance Hezbollah from blame. He added, “Let
everyone assume his responsibility.”
Sunni commanders here seem eager to fight. They seemed to know that this
part of Tripoli would explode this week, with the end of Ramadan and
its bookend holiday, Id al-Fitr. And that is exactly what happened. A
few people were killed Monday and Tuesday, as mortars, gunfire and
grenades shot back and forth. Several more died Wednesday, and at least
one person died Thursday before a cease-fire took hold around midday.
In the Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, gunmen said they had put
down their weapons out of respect for the Lebanese Army, which had
rumbled in with troop carriers and promised to keep both sides under
control.
That was not entirely the case; the pop-pop of gunfire could be heard
every half-hour or so for much of Thursday afternoon. But it was not
enough to provoke a major response.
A block from the front line of Syria Street, Abu Hamad, the Sunni
commander, and his men drank water and checked the volume on their
radios. There was no traffic or work. A woman in a black abaya smoked a
cigarette and asked some militants for news just a few feet from a road
that — like all the roads facing the Alawite area — had a large tarp
strung across it to obscure the sightlines of snipers a few hundred
yards away.
The neighborhood was ready for battle. The men were confident. They said
that they had plenty of ammunition and that the clashes, only
occasional before the Syrian uprising, would inevitably become common.
At one point, a roundish man with a ponytail began to brag about
fighting Mr. Assad’s forces in Homs a few weeks ago. Several blocks
away, the commander of another area — a green-eyed leader who called
himself the Captain — said that around 300 men from the neighborhood had
gone to Syria since the conflict there started. “Seven of them died and
were buried there,” he said. There was no sadness in his voice, only
pride.
His claim about fighters was impossible to verify. But it seemed
credible in an area where the flag of the Free Syrian Army and banners
with Islamic slogans have replaced posters for Lebanese political
leaders.
These days, Syria is the syringe pumping adrenaline into the entire
region. Here in Lebanon’s second largest city, the costs of the violence
are clear, and not just in the posters of young martyred men with
shaved heads who took up arms out of passion or persistent unemployment.
The toll can also be seen in the intensive care unit of the Islamic
hospital in the center of the city, where on Thursday afternoon, Mehdi
Sharham, 16, lay motionless except for the occasional twitch of his long
dark eyelashes. On Wednesday, his family said, he was outside a sweets
shop talking to some friends when a stray bullet struck him in the neck.
He was paralyzed immediately.
His father, Mosbah Sharham, said Mehdi was an honors student, a quiet
boy who always hated guns and loved soccer. His doctors say he will
never walk again.
“We have nothing to do with all of this,” Mr. Sharham said, “and here we are paying the price for their differences.”
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